


To Drain the Whole Sea

by Tegami



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Circus, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst with a Happy Ending, Artist Grantaire, Captivity, Depression, Found Family, Guns, Hostage Situations, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Minor Cosette Fauchelevent/Marius Pontmercy, Minor Jean Prouvaire/Bahorel, Sailor Grantaire, Siren Enjolras, Slow Burn, Violence, i skipped over the explicitly sexy scenes in this one my dudes apologies for that, like enjolras is held captive for most of this story, like glacier level slow, no matter what éponine says
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-11-11
Packaged: 2020-06-28 07:31:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 16
Words: 55,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19807612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tegami/pseuds/Tegami
Summary: "Grantaire sighed and made to follow his friends just as the man turned to face the audience and stared directly at him. Grantaire gasped, a sound he would have been embarrassed by if it was not for several other members of the audience doing the same, feeling every single hair on his body stand up as his brain told him to run, run, run; towards the creature or far, far away, he was not sure.Those eyes-By God, this was no man."Or: The one where Enjolras is a siren captured and used as attraction by the Thénardiers and Grantaire is a sailor who somehow joins them and becomes the siren's new guard.





	1. To Drain the Whole Sea

**Author's Note:**

> good news! the first draft for this fic is almost completely finished except for two or three scenes, which means it will 99% be updated regularly (weekly) and FINISHED. I'm guessing it's going to be around 35k.
> 
> (Edit: remember when I thought this was going to be 35k? haha. anyway it's finished now don't worry)
> 
> I'm doing my best to tag everything that needs to be tagged in advance, but additional warnings might be added when the time comes.
> 
> I write to get better at writing, so respectful critique is always welcome on my fics!
> 
> title taken from Take Me To Church because I'm gay.

_If I'm a pagan of the good times_  
_My lover's the sunlight_  
_To keep the Goddess on my sight_  
_She demands a sacrifice_  
_To drain the whole sea_

* * *

Returning home grew a little more difficult each year, and Grantaire wasn't sure why. It might have been how his childhood friends, his family, were slowly outgrowing him, studying law or medicine in Paris, becoming the amazing adults he'd always known they would one day be. Meanwhile, all that 10 years out at sea had left Grantaire with was a strong stomach, a liking for rum, the ability to perform most types of physical labour and great skills at avoiding them.

It was the second evening of his annual week-long home visit, which was traditionally spent in the local pub. It was the place that felt most natural to him anyway, and he spent most of the week at a corner table with a varying assortment of his friends and acquaintances until he either found somebody to fall to bed with, or his last friend to leave would take mercy on him and let him stay the night - or more often, morning - in their apartment.

This year, though, only Jehan and Marius were in town the week of Grantaire's visit. He wasn't staying for a long enough period of time that it would make sense to send out a telegram to Joly, Bossuet and Musichetta in Paris and Grantaire tried not to be affected by this. It was true that his leave he took from work wasn't in the exact same month every year, not even in the same season. And it was true that his friends had no way of knowing exactly when he'd be there. It still felt like a confirmation of what he'd been worrying about for years; that his friends were steadily forgetting about him in their new academic lives.

But Grantaire was determined not to let the self-pity get to him; he'd made the mistake of spending his week on land in a drunken stupor before, just once, years ago, and he might as well not have seen his friends at all for the scraps of memories that were all that he had left of it. Anyhow, there would be more than enough time to reminiscent about his worries once he'd boarded his new place of work the coming week.

It was nice, anyway, that Jehan and Marius were at least able to spend their whole week holed up with Grantaire. While Jehan was the only one of his friends who had never even attempted attending a university in favour of his musical and lyrical career, never mind that there was still a lack of both, Marius used every excuse he could get to wander around his home town instead of Paris, his place of study; he claimed to loath the big city almost as much as his legal studies, but could or would not give them up due to his tyrannical grandfather.

Grantaire didn't understand him. He was of the opinion that Marius should have left his family mansion in favour of making his own living as early as he could have, but then again, Marius had never been the type to volunteer for manual labour.

"Ah," Grantaire sighed when Jehan returned to their table with a new bottle of wine and three pies. Just because he didn't allow himself to drink any more than his two light-weight friends were ordering did not mean that he couldn't still appreciate the taste of wine, something they were unable to bring with them on sea. "Jehan, my saviour. Bringer of the fresh foods, provider of the ruby beverages. Lord of my-"

"Shh," Jehan said, putting everything on the round wooden table. "Quiet. I can feel my head bloat out of proportion."

"Don't you worry, I can assure you that my flatteries have nothing to do with your person and everything with the delicacies you bring."

Marius tipped his creaking chair back forward into a normal position and frowned at the pies as if they had caused a personal affront. "I would hardly call these delicate."

"Hush," Grantaire said. "Gibelotte will hear you and ban you from the premises, and where would that leave me? I'm not sure if I missed you enough to spend the next five days outside the reach of the only good wine in town."

Marius huffed and tipped his chair back against the wall behind him, resuming his sulking. "The _only_ wine, I think you mean."

Jehan, so far seeming amused, put his glass down. "I swear to Christ, Marius, if you keep this expression up for the whole week, _I_ will be the one to throw you out."

Marius seemed shocked enough at his usually gentle friend's tone to forget his frown. "I apologise for dimming the mood, but you know the reason for my worries. My gr-"

"-grandfather wants me to become a lawyer, my grandfather is evil, my grandfather hid my father's identity from me until his death." Jehan didn't sound annoyed, but determined. "We know, Marius, and you're absolutely correct. However, it's been years and all that you have done against him is hide in Paris, which you hate, then hide from Paris at your grandparents', which you hate."

"Don't look at me," Grantaire said between bites at Marius' glance, "He's right. I've been telling you for ever to leave, and although I cannot blame you for not taking advice from me, I do think that you should listen to Jehan here."

Marius looked back and forth between his friends, assumedly realising that there was nobody left to defend him, and finally let his head fall into his arms on the table. "I loathe the both of you," he groaned.

Jehan smiled and patted his arm. "We know. But we're your friends, and friends speak true to one another. And we will help you, once you decide to make your own living."

Grantaire couldn't help but laugh. "You speak like someone who does more than perform his music twice a week in a tiny pub. I do wonder how you manage to pay your rent, Jehan."

The other man simply smiled into his glass. "Don't you worry, R. I have my ways."

Grantaire chose not to ask any more questions as Jehan resumed his attempt at a motivational speech for Marius. He simply leaned back and let his friends' banter happen. This was what set these people apart as his home, he realised; he allowed himself to be quiet because his usual defences were unnecessary. He was not fool enough not to realise where his constant need to fill silences with comedy and to dominate every night of drinking with the loudest voice came from, but he was fool enough not to change his ways. This was his family, however, and for a handful of nights every year he could pretend he did not fear their judgement of him.

A man more sentimental than him might have found himself wondering months into the future about what would have happened if, in that moment, Grantaire had not looked up at the entrance door. It seemed unlikely that his life might have taken the course that it did; as it was, though, Grantaire did not believe in fate. Still, he looked, and what he saw was a boy slipping into the warmth and merriment of the early evening, unnoticed by anyone but Grantaire. He wore a brown coat, old and beaten up enough not to draw any attention, but of good enough fabrication to keep Grantaire's for a second longer.

He looked around, shaking his coat's lapels free of rain drops R hadn't realised were falling outside, and pulled a rolled up piece of paper out from under it. Making his way over to one of the wooden pillars that stood between the many tables, he pulled out a small hammer and nails as well, and began to fasten the poster over many old faded ones people had left before him. Grantaire was more than familiar with the words on those; having a small harbour, there was almost always a ship or two in need for helping hands which they hoped to find amongst the patrons here. While some inhabitants of the rather small town were easily annoyed by the constant comings and goings, Grantaire would always be grateful since this had been what had allowed him to flee the place at an early age.

Grantaire stood up and put a hand on Jehan's shoulder as he passed him on his way to the boy as way of explanation. He had originally planned to board the same ship he had come with - the pay had been good, the planned route interesting and the captain capable as well as lenient towards Grantaire's rather flexible work ethic - but he wasn't so set on it not to consider other offers he encountered while in town.

Grantaire came up behind the boy when he was fastening the paper with his third nail, and Grantaire was disappointed to find that it wasn't an announcement in search of workers after all, but what looked like the advertisement for a circus show.

"Ah," Grantaire said. "I thought you might be looking for a set of strong hands to add to your crew."

"Sorry to disappoint," said the boy with a surprisingly hoarse voice, not turning around.

As central piece, there was a face printed in blood red ink of unmistakably beautiful features and locks spilling across the paper, although its mouth was wide open, showing the sharp teeth of a flesh-eating monster. It fixed Grantaire with a murderous gaze and only after more than one moment of staring did he manage to tear his eyes off the caricature and toward the words printed at the top of the page:

 **MME. & M. TH** **ÉNADIER PRESENT**  
TO YOUR FEAR & DELIGHT  
A MYTH BROUGHT ONTO STAGE:  
**THE SERENADING SIREN**  
& THE LOVELY COSETTE  
SATURDAY - 03. MARCH  
7:30 PM

Grantaire's head snapped to the boy in front of him, so fast as if he had been slapped across the face. He knew the Thénardiers, and the connection made him realise within the fraction of a second that the boy was no boy at all.

"Éponine."

She swirled around, equally startled, and stared up at Grantaire. "Son of a bitch," Éponine said, "Grantaire."

"You look awful," Grantaire said, not able to help himself. She looked absolutely exhausted, and her attire was worlds away from the fine dresses she used to wear as a child.

Other than that, Éponine couldn’t have changed too much, as he could watch the evil grin spread on her face. "And you are still full of shit. What are you doing here? I would have put all of my money on you fleeing this town as soon as you were of age."

"Then you would have lost, for I left far earlier than that. It is by sheer coincidence that you meet me today, I am only visiting before boarding the next ship. But what would have brought you to come back?"

In that moment, Jehan clasped a hand on Grantaire's shoulder. Marius was trailing behind him, peering at the poster.

"Well, hello," Jehan said, smiling at Éponine. "What's happening here?"

"This is Éponine," Grantaire quickly introduced. "A childhood friend. Éponine, this is Jehan, and this here," he snapped his fingers a few times in front of Marius' face to get his attention away from the poster, "Is Marius."

Jehan frowned. "I thought _we_ were your childhood friends."

"Believe it or not, Jehan, I did have several friends." Grantaire laughed, but the truth was a bit more sinister than that. The Thénardiers had had a professional connection with Grantaire's parents, although he had been too young when it happened to know what it had been exactly that they did. From what he remembered of his childhood and the nature of his father's professional methods, though, it was more than likely that the Thénardiers' work had been on the illegal side.

What Grantaire had understood, though, even as a child, was the abuse the Thénardiers made their daughters go through. Any time they had spent together as children had been either during their parents' secretive meetings, or during the nights when her and Azelma had to seek shelter in Grantaire's room after their parents had thrown them out for the night during one of their fits. Frankly, it both confused and alarmed him that Éponine was apparently still with her family.

"Our parents used to work together," Éponine added helpfully. "Although we haven't as much as visited town for ever."

"What _did_ bring you to come here?" Grantaire asked again.

"Business," Éponine said, gesturing at the poster she was still standing next to. "You could say that my parents made a change of careers."

"I see." Jehan frowned. "So, they are leading… a circus?"

"Not quite. It's a show, consisting of a human singer and a siren."

"'The most extraordinary experience for any body in possession of 10 francs and a pair of working ears,'" Grantaire read out.

"Yup," said Éponine, scratching her nose.

"I wasn't even aware that sirens truly existed," Jehan admitted.

"Well, I am sure the siren thing is more of a metaphor. Right?", Grantaire asked. It wasn't that he didn't believe in the existence of sirens; he'd heard enough stories from people he'd gone to sea with to be an idiot not to at least have a healthy fear of the creatures. It was more that he did not trust the Thénardiers to be running a business not grounded in deceiving their patrons.

Éponine shrugged. "No, it really is a siren. A partner of my father's caught it out on sea years ago, though I am still unsure as to how he accomplished that. Feisty thing. I can promise it is real, however."

"That," Jehan said, "Is terrifying."

"Oh, we have been doing alright for about two years now, so I wouldn't worry about safety. You should see the show if you are interested."

"Yes," Marius said without pause, reminding Grantaire of his existence. Marius looked up from the poster, realising that everybody was staring at him and dropped his gaze again. "I mean, it sounds intriguing."

Grantaire raised an eyebrow. "Well, 10 francs is quite a sum."

"Believe me, it is worth it. Anyhow, I can get you three in for half the price, how does that sound? I should warn you, though, for there have been cases of guests never quite overcoming what they heard on that one evening, never fully returning to their old selves."

Grantaire laughed. "Sure, Éponine."

"Scoff all you want, but it is true. Do not say that I did not warn you." She pulled out a scratched-up pocket-watch and sighed. "I have to get back, but we will see each other on Saturday, correct? Seven thirty."

"I cannot wait," Jehan said absolutely genuinely.

"Sure," Grantaire said.

Marius was still staring at the poster, and only when Éponine had left did Grantaire realise that there was also the face of what he assumed to be "THE LOVELY COSETTE" printed in a corner. That certainly explained Marius's pink ears; he'd always had a weakness for beautiful blondes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sometimes I want people to use a specific form or profanity that seems way too modern and then I just google it and see if the earliest use was before around 1800. turns out Shakespeare probably invented Son of a Bitch because of course he did
> 
> updates will be happening weekly as i edit the first draft. kudos & comments are literally the reason why i share my writing.
> 
> thank you!


	2. How Could Anyone Not Love the Terrible Things You Do?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one day I'll figure out a posting schedule besides "I just felt like updating this today"

  
_I held my breath as I watched you swing_  
_And run your fingers through your hair_

 _Oh, how could anyone not love_  
_The terrible things you do_  
_Oh, how could anyone not want_  
_To try and help you_

\- "Barricade" by Stars

* * *

As Saturday grew nearer, Grantaire grew less and less convinced it had been such a good idea to go see the show. As far as he could imagine, there were two possible outcomes for the evening: either, which he expected, the Thénardiers hadn't changed at all and the so-called siren was a talented singer at best. Five francs wasted. Or the Thénardiers had somehow gotten their hands on an actual siren, which would quite honestly turn the evening into a death trap rather than an hour of entertainment.

Grantaire's doubt in the siren's legitimacy didn't stem from his disbelief in their general existence - no, he was sure that there were sirens out there in the sea. He had never come across one, which he was quite grateful for, thank you very much, but he had seen the remains of ships and their companies more than once, and he knew the blank spots on maps that not even the most desperate navigator would send their vessel through.

It was the Thénardiers themselves that Grantaire considered as too impotent to survive two years of touring with a confined siren without at least a handful of fatal accidents. Again, Grantaire had thankfully never heard a siren's call, but women and men of far higher intelligence than Éponine's parents' had succumbed to it before.

But of course, Grantaire didn't abstain from going to the show. For one, Marius had taken over to wistfully staring at the poster and being more useless for any kind of conversation than ever, and they had simply promised Éponine to come.

To much of Grantaire's surprise, there was a fair share of sailors mingling around the tent when the three friends arrived. He had expected the townsfolk, but his kind of people really should have known better than this. It was possible that they, too, didn't fully believe in the credibility of this performance.

The Thénardiers had set up their tent just outside the city, near a road leading towards the next bigger city. The tent might have belonged to a small circus. It looked shabby enough that Grantaire was convinced they had actually stolen it from one or gotten for a bargain. About a dozen carriages were rowed up behind the tent and there were as many horses encircled nearby by a temporarily erected fence.

"Somehow," Grantaire said honestly, "I'm beginning to doubt the quality of the evening before us."

"Don't judge a book by its binding, my friend," Jehan said. Marius almost fell over a badly-fastened rope that drooped so close to the ground you could not see it in the high grass, but Jehan caught him by the arm.

Grantaire bit back a laugh. "Somewhere, there is an artist making a living off of the illustrations on books' bindings who desperately wants you to stop saying that."

Jehan rolled his eyes but said, "Touché."

There was still no sight of Éponine, and Grantaire went and peaked through the tent's entrance. Inside he still found no Éponine, but the sight left Grantaire astonished.

"Well," he said when Jehan stepped up next to him. "This might become interesting, after all."

"Sinister is what it is," said Jehan.

"What?", said Marius, joining them. "Oh, Christ."

Although the tent was somewhat round, the insides were arranged with all the benches facing the stage, similar to a theatre. If everything else looked like it would fall apart any second, the metal bars surrounding the stage and turning it into a literal cage seemed solid enough. If this really was an act, Grantaire thought, the Thénardiers had outdone themselves.

"Welcome to the zoo," came a voice from behind them, and they turned to find Éponine standing in the grass. She didn't look especially happy to see them, but if Grantaire remembered correctly, her face was generally unwilling to form anything between a wicked smile and a frown. "Stifle your cries of joy, but I managed to bargain tickets for three francs each. I know, I'm wonderful, but restrain your thanks until after the show when you can tell if you have lost your mind or not."

It was weird, Grantaire thought. He wouldn’t have expected Éponine to be invested in her parents' business enough to talk it up like this. Well, he hadn’t expected her to still be working for them, either, so maybe he'd simply never known Éponine as well as he'd thought.

"Much appreciated." Jehan smiled sweetly and handed her the money in exchange for a ticket, as did R and Marius.

When they turned to enter the tent, though, Éponine didn’t follow them. "I will wait for you after the show," she said in response to R's questioning glance. "You won't ever find me inside that tent."

"How reassuring, thank you," he said.

At this point, Grantaire wasn't sure anymore if he was terrified or absolutely intrigued by what lay before them. Once he found that the beer sold at this place was not more expensive than that at Gibelotte's, although it was a little more watered down, he settled on being intruiged as Jehan joined them on their bench with drinks in hand.

"Again, I owe you my life," Grantaire said.

"Don't worry about it," Jehan said with a smile just self-satisfied enough to make Grantaire suspicious. He glanced to the table where liquor was sold and saw the man behind it still looking after Jehan, a smile half-hidden behind his beard.

Ah. The drinks had been on the house, it seemed.

Grantaire noticed that Monsieur Thénardier was already milling around the patrons, presumably animating them to buy a drink or three, maybe pick-pocketing, who could tell. He hadn’t changed much since Grantaire's childhood apart from his now fully bald head and the darker colouring of his teeth.

Jehan was eyeing the tiny beat up-looking piano squeezed next to the stage, outside of the cage. "Awful," he said. "How they expect a self-respecting musician to play on something like that is beyond me. There is no way that you could still accurately tune it."

"Don't judge a book by its binding, Jehan," Grantaire said into his beer, trying not to grin.

"I loathe you. Marius, what do you think? Doesn’t it look awful? Marius?"

Grantaire looked at the man between them, laughing out loud at the dazed expression he found. Marius blinked and looked at him, startled. "What?"

Jehan succeeded, better than Grantaire, at hiding his amusement. "I dearly hope that this obsession will be over after this evening, or we'll have to bring you to a clockmaker to get you working again. Are you really _this_ distracted by that woman? Or are you not feeling well?"

The blush creeping out of Marius's collar up to his ears told Grantaire everything he needed to know. "I don’t know what you're talking about," he tried.

Grantaire put the arm that was not holding the beer around his friend, looking at Jehan in mock grief. "And I’d never thought this day would finally come. Our Marius, grown up and lusting after a real woman. Well, after her picture, I should say."

Jehan snorted. "I do hope that she will be as beautiful in reality as her picture. I wouldn’t survive to see his innocent heart break."

Marius stopped trying to shake Grantaire's arm off in order to look at Jehan in alarm. "You don't honestly think she will be different from her picture, do you?"

Just then, though, the people around them got quiet as they realised that Monsieur Thénardier had walked onto stage; or rather, onto the highest step before the cage. He was somewhat far into his speech already, but it seemed to be much of the same things every entertainer was expected to say before a show, anyway.

Grantaire listened half-heartedly to assurances of the siren's legitimacy as he looked around the room. Most guests were sitting down on benches, some still in the process of buying drinks from the man who still threw glances at Jehan once in a while. There was an opening in the tent near the stage, somewhere for the singers to appear through, Grantaire assumed. It was guarded by two bulky men with rifles, just like the entrance they had come through, which Grantaire found rather obnoxious. He guessed that they were simply there to intimidate the guests since they were still in a room with walls of cloth, and whoever wanted to sneak inside could probably do so fairly easily.

Grantaire glanced at the men again and realised what had struck him as strange; they all seemed to have something dark stuck in their ears, presumably to block out noise. He almost laughed. The Thénardiers had truly outdone themselves with their show, for at this point Grantaire was convinced that that was all this was.

Everyone started to cheer before Grantaire realised that Monsieur Thénardier had finished his speech, and Grantaire joined them as he watched a woman and a small old man being let into the tent. She took Thénardier's previous place and smiled into the crowd that had only grown louder as 'The Lovely Cosette' had turned out to be even lovelier than her picture had promised. Her hair was done beautifully and flowed over her blue dress, and her smile could have made a drowning man feel warm inside.

Grantaire looked over at Marius.

"Lord," he said to Jehan. "I think we may have lost him."

Jehan glanced over and stifled his laughter as the audience grew quieter. Marius looked like he had seen the most beautiful ghost to ever exist, and did nothing to acknowledge he was hearing anything they said.

The man gave a fitting picture sitting down at the piano, both of them equally old and worn-out looking. He squinted at the paper in front of him, leaning forward, and started to play a melody so out of tune and without rhythm that even Grantaire squirmed.

"Somebody keep me from going up there and hitting him over the head," Jehan mumbled.

But then, Cosette began to sing, silencing all mocking whispers effectively with a few notes. Her voice was as lovely as herself, high and soft, but growing ever louder. Grantaire did not know much about music or singing apart from what he'd learnt over rum, but he found himself wondering if there was a way that this siren, real or not, could outdo her performance. He leaned back, sipped on his beer and listened, even forgetting to mock Marius for the whole length of the four songs she and her awful pianist performed.

When Cosette bowed to her last applause, Marius's face was fully flushed and eyes wide-open. He was applauding so strongly Grantaire was afraid he would strain something, but he bit back any commentary. He supposed it was a good thing that she’d made Marius stop worrying about his grandfather for a few days.

Cosette slipped out through the back entrance as Monsieur Thénardier took to the stage again to announce the siren's performance.

"My wonderful audience, my band of sailors, scholars and gentlewomen! I know you must worry we will not be able to ever live up to our lovely Cosette, but do not fret! Get ready for the myth, the legend, the-"

"I need to go," Marius said from between them, eyes still focused on where Cosette had just vanished.

"What?", Grantaire said, amused, but Marius was already standing and squeezing past him.

"I must find her," Marius said and left the tent through the way they had come.

Grantaire turned to Jehan to laugh, but found that his other friend was also standing up, frowning. He mumbled something about giving the musician a piece of his mind as he followed Marius outside. Grantaire was left sitting on their bench, not knowing if he wanted to laugh or cry. What was the fun in this entire evening if he would not be able to laugh with his friends about it later?

He shook his head and stood to follow them just as Monsieur Thénardier finished his speech and the tent was opened again. Grantaire noticed that the guards looked a little more tense than before. One fumbled with what was in his ear. R looked around and saw that the man with the liquor had also taken the same safety precautions, and finally, that Thénardier had done the same. The tent was dead silent and Grantaire almost sat down again out of sheer curiosity when the siren was pushed into the tent.

Grantaire was almost disappointed, really, for what stumbled inside was nothing but a man, looking barely of age. It was an insanely beautiful man, that he could give him, with blond curls that left Cosette's pale by comparison and the kind of beautiful face of a dark complexion Grantaire would have spent an entire evening staring at over his drink if he had encountered it elsewhere. But apart from that, and the beautifully crafted red satin jacket the man was wearing, Grantaire was sure that he was just that: a man.

As he was being pushed into the cage, though, Grantaire noticed more and more things that dared him to change his mind. Looking closely, he had webs between his fingers of a pale orange colour that gave no stark contrast to his skin. Looking even closer, parts of his neck peeking out from the beautiful satin collar seemed to be covered in scales of the same colour, even harder to spot.

A badly made costume, Grantaire thought.

He sighed and made to follow his friends just as the man turned to face the audience and stared directly at Grantaire. He gasped, a sound he would have been embarrassed by if it was not for several other audience members doing the same, feeling every single hair on his body stand up as his brain told him to run, run, _run_ ; towards the creature or far, far away, he was not sure.

Those eyes-

By God, this was no man.

Grantaire jumped as he felt a hand land heavily on his shoulder. "Monsieur," said someone with plugged ears a little too loudly. "You will have to sit down. Safety reasons."

Grantaire blinked. "I'm sorry, I was just leaving," he said, remembering his intentions. He gestured to the entrance and quickly slipped through before he could be told to stay; his brain had decided on wanting to flee. He looked back and in the fraction of a second before the cloth had fallen closed, he could see several guards pointing their rifles up at the siren.

He stopped and spent a good number of moments just breathing in the cool evening wind, trying to get rid of the goose bumps that refused to leave his body. Finally, he gave up and rounded the tent in search for his useless friends.

He found them a few dozen metres away by the wagons, standing in scattered groups amongst Éponine, Cosette, and the piano player.

Grantaire walked over to a smirking Éponine, sitting down next to her on one of the wagon's steps. "So you fled as well? I cannot say I'm not disappointed, dear Grantaire."

"You underestimate me," he said. "It’s nothing but the worry for my friends that made me leave." He squinted through the twilight at where Jehan was talking to the piano player some way off. The man had his face buried in his hands.

"Is he _crying_?", he asked Éponine silently.

"He doesn't take critique well," she shrugged, taking a chug from the bottle in her hands. Rum, presumably.

Grantaire took it from her to test his assumption, relieved despite himself as he found them confirmed. While he always longed for a bit of variety when he was out on sea, there was nothing quite like the familiar burn of rum.

Éponine reached for the bottle and missed it as Grantaire pulled it away. "Have mercy on me," he said, "I’m a sailor on land, the most useless of all creatures. Rum is all that reminds me of home."

Éponine rolled her eyes. "Somehow, you haven’t changed at all."

Grantaire made an effort to grin extra wide. "Believe me, I’m aware."

Cosette's laugh made both of them turn, a sound as clear as her singing voice. Marius looked like he was about to have an aneurysm simply from having caused such a sound, his cheeks flushed.

"Well," Grantaire said to Éponine. "This is certainly going better for him than I’d expected. Where did your family pick her up, anyhow?"

Éponine shrugged. "Only a few towns over, actually. She was singing in church and my father quite literally snatched her out of the mass. I have absolutely no idea what he told the poor father to make him let her go, he didn’t seem very amused." She sighed. "I try to stay out of my parents' business as well as I can, nowadays."

"Say, why are you still with them at all?", Grantaire said.

Éponine glanced over as if she didn't know if she was supposed to laugh or not. "What do you propose I should do, Grantaire? Seduce a husband with my womanly looks? Go and board one of the many ships that are willing to take women on board, like you did? Oh, of course, _there isn't such a thing."_

Grantaire would have been more annoyed at her bitterness if it didn't seem so natural to her. "I apologise," he said. "I was just remembering all the plans you made to leave when we were children."

"Yes, well," Éponine said, trying again to grab the bottle. Grantaire let her take it and watched as she swallowed deeply. "We were children. Also, there is Azelma who I cannot leave behind, and she’s far from willing to leave."

Grantaire thought this sounded a lot like an excuse, but it was true that he couldn’t fully understand Éponine's struggles, not only as a woman, but as someone who had something holding them back.

Grantaire had never had anything worth staying or going anywhere.

He watched as Éponine stretched her legs out before them. "I have to admit," he said, "That I didn't believe your father actually managed to capture a real siren."

She gave him a shrug, telling Grantaire that she didn’t blame him for this. "What made you change your mind? You still haven’t heard it sing."

"But I saw him," he said. _"It._ Those eyes can’t possibly belong to a human." Éponine nodded in agreement. "Although I still wonder what kind of man it must have taken to go to sea and catch a siren."

"One as stupid as he was lucky," said Éponine, taking another drink before handing the bottle back to Grantaire. "I don’t know the whole story, but I think it was more of a coincidence than anything. From what I know, they came across it alone and by daylight, with most of the crew still deaf from the cannon shots of a battle the night before. My father bargained it off the captain for a ridiculously low price by convincing him he was better off without it, which, if you ask me, is one of the only truths my father's ever spoken."

Grantaire raised his eyebrows. "That does sound like either a lucky coincidence, or maybe an extremely stupid siren." All the stories he’d heard, the ages-old legends as well as what a man he'd once known swore had once happened to his brother, suggested that sirens lived in groups and only ever attacked at night.

"Don't go and underestimate it," Éponine said. "A big part of me is in all honesty glad that you didn’t stay to listen. It might have sounded like I was joking before, but I swear that we’ve had guests who never fully overcame its call."

Grantaire hummed, still not convinced. "And what would that look like?"

"Well, some that had started following us around became violent when we stopped granting them entrance. It hasn’t happened in a while, mostly because we take great care not to tell anyone where we’re going next and try not to sell a ticket to someone twice."

Grantaire was about to open his mouth to voice his remaining disbelief when the wind changed its direction. They were only a few dozen metres away from the tent, and Grantaire hadn’t thought to find it weird before that they couldn’t hear a single sound from inside; and still, even with the wind blowing in their direction, there was barely anything to hear. Grantaire felt the sound more in his bones than actually heard it, the feeling sending his whole body into shivers. The siren’s gaze had been nothing compared to this, only that this time, Grantaire was sure what direction he wanted to run in. He told himself they wouldn’t let him inside the tent when he’d try, and wrapped his arms firmly around his knees.

"Jesus," he said into the silence he hadn’t been aware had grown between every one sitting there in the near darkness.

That was when the piano player stormed past them, no longer crying, but beet-red. He stopped for just a moment in front of Éponine to say, "Farewell, since my services are not appreciated here."

Jehan came to a halt by them, watching him leave with a pale face.

"What did you do to that poor man?"

He looked at Grantaire and Éponine helplessly. "I just advised him, politely, to get his damned instrument tuned!"

Éponine laughed her hoarse laugh. "Don’t blame yourself, he’s been annoying everyone with threats of leaving for months, anyway. I think my father will be relieved. That is, if he doesn’t return again in a few days."

"Although this means that I'm now without musical accompaniment," said Cosette, frowning.

Marius' eyes widened as he pointed at their friend. "Jehan is a musician!"

Jehan only blinked for a moment before smiling. "Marius, are you trying to make me elope with the circus?"

“It’s not actually a circus,” said Éponine silently.

"And why not?", Grantaire said. He looked at Éponine. "He can play the flute and piano, as well as anything you give him four weeks to learn. And he writes, too, poems and songs."

"And he would be a far more fitting accompaniment for Cosette," Marius said with a glance towards the latter, who was smiling at Jehan.

All eyes were on Éponine, who simply shrugged. "I’m not the one to decide this. I can talk to my parents, but-"

"'Ponine!", came a cry that silenced everyone. A woman who Grantaire recognised as Éponine's mother from her voice and piled-high curls stomped in front of her daughter with an accusing finger. "That damned musician! What did you do this time?"

Before Éponine could even open her mouth, Jehan spoke up. "I have to apologise, dear Madame. It was me who drove him away, I'm afraid, although it wasn’t my intent."

Mademoiselle Thénardier eyed Jehan suspiciously, albeit with somewhat less fury than her daughter. "Then I hope you have a way of getting him back here, or know of a fitting replacement. We’re all dependant on him and I wouldn’t hesitate to bill any losses to this-"

"Actually," Grantaire said, "Jehan himself here just graciously offered his talents to your humble business."

Jehan gave him a glance that was half bemused and half annoyed. "I did-"

Éponine stood up. "He's somewhat overqualified, but he will be satisfied with only double of what the pay used to be."

"He plays four instruments, and writes his own music," Marius said, and Grantaire held back a grin.

Mademoiselle Thénardier looked at everyone, one by one, before sighing. "It's not like we have a choice," she said, "But we pay the same as before, nothing more."

"No," Jehan said. "One and a half. And my friends here are also searching for an occupation, manual labour or otherwise." Mademoiselle Thénardier was opening her mouth in protest when Jehan added, "Or I stay here, where I’m sure I will be paid according to my qualifications."

Mademoiselle Thénardier clenched her jaw for a while before smiling at the three of them. "Alright," she said. "I do hope you’re worth what you’re promising." And she stomped off.

Grantaire was the first one to break the silence when he started laughing at Jehan's stunned face.

Marius looked bewildered. "Did we just join the circus?"

"For the last time," Éponine rolled her eyes, "It's not a circus."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you haven't noticed, this is the first time ever that I've written anything remotely historical, so please bear with me,,,
> 
> thank you!


	3. I've Been Navigating My Way Through the Mind-Numbing Reality of a Godless Existence

_Just like the kids, I've been navigating my way_  
_Through the mind-numbing reality of a godless existence_  
_Which, at this point in my hollow and vapid life,_  
_Has erased what little ambition I've got left_  
  
\- "Kids" by PUP

* * *

For Grantaire, the decision to actually accept this offer for work was one of the fastest he'd ever made. The only reason he’d stayed on sea for as long as he’d had was old habits mixed with the convenience of having a decent stash of alcohol wherever he went.

The latter was a given: alcohol followed the Thénardiers wherever they went, or maybe it was the other way around. But most importantly, Grantaire wouldn’t have to leave his friends behind for the first time since they had all been children; at least not for quite some time. Éponine had told him that her parents usually tried to exchange all the workers once a year, during which they made their way through the whole of France. This also meant that they would be passing by Paris, and with some luck, Grantaire would be able to see Joly, Bossuet and Musichetta. The pay was slightly worse than on sea, that was true, and he also knew that the Thénardiers were not the most reliable when it came to actually paying their workers on time, but all of this was a risk he was willing to take.

Needless to say, Marius's decision had not been quite as easy. They'd all had two days until the company would leave town, one of which he used to get spectacularly drunk, ranting about family values and pointless lives and Cosette's eyes and inheritances. The second, Grantaire and Jehan personally consorted him to the steps of his family's impressive front door, waiting there for the next three hours until Marius finally emerged again, shoulders slumped, face pale, but held high, with a single bag in hand. His grandfather's disapproving look followed the three friends from a first story window all the way down the street and out of town.

***

"This might just be the worst decision I've ever made," Marius said from where he was sitting next to Jehan.

"You should be more optimistic," said Grantaire. "This might just be the first decision you've ever made for yourself."

Jehan shortened the reins to the horse pulling their wagon and fastened it to the bank, leaning back. While being a coachman hadn't been part of his agreed-on responsibilities, they’d needed for someone to take care of this carriage, and both Marius and Grantaire were no help with this specific task.

Marius crossed his arms in front of him but said nothing else.

Grantaire squinted past the wagon in front of them, trying to see anything of the way they were going. For whatever reason, they were travelling through the first night, which reminded him of what Éponine had said about taking care that nobody would follow them. Grantaire realised that he could probably count himself lucky if he came out of this year alive.

"Do you have any idea where we're going?", he asked Jehan, who shrugged.

"I can't say I do. We're going generally South, I think, the next few weeks. Then someway East, before travelling back up towards Paris."

Grantaire grinned. "Do I dare ask who you know this from, dear Jehan? Have you made friends with your new colleagues already?"

"I know who you’re referring to, and I’m not going to dignify this with an answer."

Marius glanced back and forth between his friends. "What are you talking about?"

"Why, the gentleman who seemed quite delighted at learning that Jehan was going to join this den of dissolutes."

Marius frowned. "You don't mean the bartender?"

"Bahorel," Jehan said. "His name is Bahorel, and I deeply regret making you two stay up with me."

"Oh, don't be so harsh," said Grantaire. "I could never forgive myself if I let you wake through the night on your own."

As if on command, Éponine appeared next to their wagon, seemingly manifesting directly out of the darkness. "Well, Grantaire," she said, walking alongside them in the glow of their lantern. "It seems you are in for a pay raise. You're welcome."

He raised an eyebrow. "I am almost afraid to ask," he said.

"They need another man to guard the siren. I suggested you because the pay is better, and the work is easy. All you have to do is watch a deadly monster, and not die, which should be easy, considering that you’re not stupid enough to do anything, well, stupid. How about it?"

Grantaire blinked. "Are you telling me that all I'll have to do is sit around, and be paid more?"

Éponine nodded. "Correct. Of course, the catch is the danger of death at all times, but like I said. Only stupid men have managed to get themselves killed so far, which I don't count you towards. It shouldn’t be more dangerous than you’re used to out on sea, I would guess, anyhow."

Grantaire glanced over at Jehan, who had his eyebrows raised, and Marius, who was mouthing ' _Killed_?', looking alarmed.

"Well," he said, "Why not?"

"Good," she said. "Come on then, your shift starts now."

Jehan gave him a silent pat on the shoulder as he slipped off the wagon and disappeared into the darkness alongside Éponine.

Right then, Grantaire realised it would have been wise to try and find out in what way the siren was held captive, and if it was safe, before starting his work. Trusting the Thénardiers was never a good idea. On the other hand, Grantaire had never thought himself particularly wise, and he could always excuse his recklessness with trusting that Éponine would warn him if he was in any real danger.

Then again, Éponine was also the one quite literally shoving him inside the monster's cage right now. A cage that, from the outside, looked a lot like the kind of wagon Grantaire would be finding his rest in, on shabby bunk beds, for the next few months.

(It looked still more comfortable than his sleeping arrangements during the last years had been, so he wasn't complaining. Marius and Jehan would have to get used to it.)

"About time," said the man sitting hunched on the steps on the back of said wagon. Grantaire thought he might have been one of those standing guard in the tent the other night. "Montparnasse was getting annoying, knocking on the door every few minutes. The thing's creeping him out this week."

Éponine scoffed. "I have been gone for a literal minute, and I wouldn't call that news. 'Parnasse pisses himself the second he so much as hears Cosette sing."

"Fair enough," said the guard, standing up and rummaging in his pocket. He pulled out a key, one that was so big and rusty-looking that Grantaire was fairly certain it must have been at least partly for show. "You're the new canary?"

"That I am," said Grantaire. It took him a second longer to understand the name than to answer, but he didn't break the man's gaze.

"Very well," he said, using his key to open the door behind him.

Grantaire was about to climb onto the steps of the moving carriage when someone rushed out of the door and almost knocked the guard over. For a second, he was sure that the siren was escaping, until he realised that the man's hair wasn’t blond, but slicked-back and dark.

Montparnasse, Grantaire guessed, gave an exaggerated full-body shudder, saying, "Never again. I'm doing this stupid job never again. Damn those creepy eyes and damn Thénardier for making me the stand-in every damn time." Only then did he seem to realise that Éponine was present, still walking along beside Grantaire, and his face morphed into the most charming and most oily grin Grantaire had ever seen. "Nothing I can't handle, of course. Just way below my pay."

"Of course," Éponine said in the driest tone humanly possible. Grantaire was almost proud of her.

Montparnasse's eyes met Grantaire's, giving him a similarly greasy smile. "He's your problem now," he said, jumped off the steps and vanished into the night towards another wagon in their train.

"And that's Montparnasse," Éponine said.

"Lovely meeting him," Grantaire said before following the guard's gesture and climbing onto the wagon.

"I'll see you in the morning, Grantaire," said Éponine, and grinned. "As long as you live to see it, of course."

"I'll try not to disappoint," he said and let himself be pushed into the wagon.

Grantaire had been right; with the brighter lantern on the in- than the outside, he could tell that this was quite literally the exact same wagon the workers slept in. The most obvious difference was the fact that the wooden walls were lined with bars made of metal, an effort Grantaire found laughable no matter their relevance; the floor and ceiling were made of the exact same wood and left unprotected. The only thing it did was make the room feel like the cage of an animal, as well as the small windows impossible to climb through even if you were to break the glass.

Instead of stacked-up beds, there were barely any pieces of furniture. There was a small desk with a lantern and a stool next to the door that Grantaire had come through, positioned in a way so that you could sit and face the room. Montparnasse had left a rifle on the desk which pointed towards a bed, if you could call it such, that was pushed into a corner on the other side of the space. For some reason, Grantaire made an effort not to stare at the bundle on it wrapped into a ruddy blanket and squeezed into the last possible corner.

"So," said the guard behind Grantaire. He seemed to take great care not to step into the room. "All you are supposed to do is keep an eye on it, although it mostly stays like that all night. In case anything happens, goes berserk or something, tries to rip its gag off, just knock three times. It shouldn't be able to reach you past here, though." The man gestured along a line that was scratched into the floorboards, about one third into the wagon.

Grantaire heard a metallic sound as the carriage shook with the uneven terrain they were passing. He looked over again and spotted a thick metal chain leading from under the blanket to where it was fastened to the ground. The bed posts were chained down as well.

Grantaire nodded. "Do I need anything else? Another kind of weapon, or those," he motioned towards his ears, "Things?"

The guard smiled in a way that seemed somehow half patronising and half sadistic. "The second you feel you need to draw a weapon it will be too late, anyhow, but that rifle usually stays here. It really isn't necessary for you to plug your ears while it's gagged, as long as you pay attention. Ask Montparnasse about it if you feel you still want them in the morning."

"Alright," Grantaire said, wanting to argue that it felt quite necessary to him, but knowing full-well that he would avoid any kind of conversation with Montparnasse.

"Anything else?", the guard said. "If you need anything, two knocks. Three are for danger. Shift's over in the morning."

"Noted," said Grantaire, and watched as the door was closed and locked behind him.

Grantaire stood where he was for a good minute, feeling incredibly awkward. He felt the rhythmic sway of the wagon, so similar to what he had grown used to over his life, and yet completely different. He could already tell that he would have trouble falling asleep the next few days. He would have to try and find out in which wagon the liquor was stashed away.

Finally, Grantaire forced himself to sit down at the desk. He didn’t understand why it was so hard for his eyes to stay on the siren, but he would have to get over it soon. Staring at it for hours was how he was supposed to earn his salary now after all. Still, he’d studied all the works of art carved into the wood of the desk (most of them of blasphemous and/or phallic nature) before he looked up again.

When he finally really looked, Grantaire could see that blond hair was spilling out from under the blanket, although that was it. The lantern's shine made it seem like the curls itself were glowing, but then again, who was Grantaire to judge that that wasn’t the truth.

He tried to keep his eyes on the bed, do nothing but lean against the wall behind him and stare, but it quickly wore him out. The light thrown by the lantern did little to keep his eyes from falling shut on their own whim, and the siren didn’t seem like it was planning to move, anyhow. It would probably sleep through the night as the guard had predicted. As long as Grantaire stayed awake, he would be fine.

Grantaire sat up straight again, hearing the bones in his back crack, and pulled out the folded paper and pencil he usually carried with him in his jacket. He had always found a liking in sketching anything that surrounded him to pass the time, and paper and something resembling coal could be found anywhere, so he’d stuck with it over the years. Most of his creations, if you dared to call them such, had been lost over the years, either to the water, acquaintances whose favours he'd tried to gain by sketching their portraits, or simply to a dirty street when his pockets had grown too heavy. Grantaire didn’t draw for the result, but the pleasure and diversion of the act.

That night, leaning over the desk, he drew Éponine's mouth curled into a sneer, the old eyes of somebody resembling Marius in a squint and Jehan's hair. He attempted a horse, scratched that out, tried again, scratched that out, Musichetta, laughing, with two arms thrown over her shoulder from either side.

The next time Grantaire looked up from his pencil, he almost had a heart attack. The siren was sitting up, staring at him.

He realised that he was somewhat terrible at this whole guarding thing.

Those irises that he knew for a fact were not red, yet somehow they were, seared a path right through his skull. It took Grantaire's brain a moment to note that the siren was wearing a piece of leather around its head, covering everything from beneath its nose to under the chin, fastened at its neck with from what he could see were many complicated knots, each one just slightly too tight. It was leaning against the wall, and its clothes were incomparable to the satin jacket it had been clothed in for the show; nothing but a white shirt, even more threadbare than those Grantaire owned, and linen pants.

He could see now, through the thin fabric, that the patches of orange scales did go up onto the siren's neck, but mostly covered its shoulders and parts of the chest. There was nothing to protect it from the nightly chill seeping through the floorboards but the ratty blanket, although it did not seem to be cold without it. It just kept staring.

And staring.

Grantaire didn't look away. He didn't think he could. He simply reminded himself that this was a sea monster, probably used to temperatures far below these, and stared back.

He’d never in his life met a gaze so full of fury, although the siren’s facial features were unmoving. The whole weight of its anger was encompassed in two eyes, and that stare. Neither Grantaire nor his body could get over how beautiful it was, shiver after shiver running down his back, and he despised himself for it.

"Hello," he said before he could think about it. "I'm, uh. My name is Grantaire."

It didn't answer.

Obviously.

"I know you cannot understand me, but I’m feeling a bit unsettled right now, and somewhat terrified, and talking endlessly is one of my natural responses to any kind of stressful situation, and I fear I am not allowed to drink on the job, so."

The siren stared. Grantaire couldn’t remember if he had seen it blink so far.

"Uh," he said. "So, this is absolutely terrifying. I know you cannot do anything, physically, but I’m not quite stupid enough to let that calm me. Especially considering that Éponine mentioned people in my position getting killed." Grantaire scratched his head through his curls, tipping the stool back in what he tried his brain to believe was nonchalance when he wanted nothing but get more space between him and this creature. "I really should have asked her for more information, huh. Instead of simply accepting. I suppose that’s a general issue with me, not thinking life-or-death decisions through beforehand."

The siren kept unnervingly still to a point that made Grantaire's goose bumps grow goose bumps. He had to look away, just for a moment, but did not dare for his eyes to leave its body. Its hands were lying in its lap, unmoving as the rest of it, and Grantaire was strangely relieved to study its webbed fingers and similar toes. His brain had worryingly little difficulty in accepting this, finding its similarity to the human form far more unnerving than any anomalies he could possibly have found.

"Anyhow," Grantaire said, desperate to fill the silence with anything that wasn’t his own thoughts telling him to run away (and that was ironic, wasn't it? Since the siren's power was supposed to be its dangerous allure). "This is my first time seeing a siren. Which should be obvious in how I’m here and alive to say this, I assume. If I was honest, I didn’t previously fully believe in your existence, no matter how many stories of shipwrecks and whatnot I’ve been told. Unbelieving cynic at heart, I suppose, and too old to change any of it. But what am I to do, with the general education in this country being the way it is? Better to keep the people stupid, of course."

He sighed, tipping his head back against the wall he was leaning against and closing his eyes before thinking better of it. His eyes found a smiling Musichetta on the page before him before he forced them to meet the siren's unchanging glare.

"I shouldn’t let my friends hear me talk like this, or they will be lead to think that I actually care. They think me a cynic, which I readily admit to, but they also assume I am uncaring, and possibly a clown, which I am, most of the time, and when I’m not, I am willing to play those roles. I’m not sure I know how not to. Still, they need somebody to point out their naivety and bring them down to earth, even if only once a year. I’m just glad that they are as disorganised as they are, for sometimes I fear that all they are lacking to throw their lives towards the next relevant-seeming cause is nothing but a voice to guide them."

Christ, Grantaire's mouth wouldn’t stop spitting out _words_. He truly loathed his sober self from time to time. He'd planned to steal from Éponine's stash of rum bottles he was sure she possessed at some point during this night to share with Marius and Jehan, which was obviously not happening now. He could deal without alcohol for a few hours, of course he could, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t despise the way his sober brain seemed to be more out of his control than his drunk one.

Or maybe it was that his sober brain gave him room to feel the regret over his words.

He licked his lips and wondered if it would be wise to knock twice and ask the guard to fetch him a drink. "Truly, I rejoice for every year I return and don’t find one of them shot in a meaningless duel in the back alley of some-"

Grantaire was cut off by his own sharp intake of breath, followed by himself almost toppling over off his seat. The siren had moved as sharply, suddenly, as its stillness had somehow been; one moment it was sitting up, the next it was curled up again, fully covered by the blanket. The only indication that any movement had occurred in Grantaire's full sight was the slowing rattle of its chain against the bed frame.

Grantaire drew until the early sun announced the end of his shift, resisting the temptation to fill the entire space he had with nothing but blond curls and furious eyes. Instead, he tried his hand at the horses he'd watched earlier in the evening again. By morning he was nearly satisfied by the result, and in need of new paper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t like to specify what the les amis look like exactly because I know I have my own clear way of imagining them all and don’t really want to get that in the way for anyone else who’s reading like it sometimes does for me. because this is a Grantaire POV, though, Enjolras is obviously described a whole lot, and the way I picture him is with a dark skin tone.
> 
> I’m telling you all this because I want to avoid for people to assume that I chose Enjolras’s skin tone to make this into some kind of weird slavery analogy, which is not the case. forgive & tell me if it does come off this way, please.
> 
> I'll try to upload the coming chapters every Monday/Tuesday.
> 
> thank you!


	4. I Ain't Been Happy Since I Met You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my formal apology to anyone who actually knows anything about Montparnasse's character because I'm convinced I'm portraying him completely wrong
> 
> Edit: I only noticed after posting this how this chapter is considerably shorter than the others! sorry. the next one will be up by Sunday though hopefully because I'm getting excited about stuff that happens much later and I want to get there fast haha

_I ain't been happy since I met you_  
_I've been travelling around like I said I would_  
_But it ain't right_

\- "Talking About Love to a Cigarette" by Wilderado

* * *

With his new responsibilities, Grantaire was surprised to find that he now made more money than his usual salary the last few years had been. This on top of being around Éponine and his friends again, and his only task being quite literally nothing but sitting around – it was almost too good to be true.

So, at the end of the day, lying on the thin mattress of his bunk bed at night or early in the morning after his shift, his brain refusing to quit, Grantaire had to wonder: Why was he still not content?

Admittedly, Marius wasn’t the best company to have around in his current state, still chasing after Cosette like a love-drunk puppy. To Grantaire's relieve and most of all Marius's astonishment, she did in fact seem to return his affections, which made for a disgustingly sweet display.

At least Jehan's association with the bartender was of more use to them all. Bahorel did in fact have more responsibilities than handing out drinks, but most importantly, his soft spot that he had shown early on for Jehan granted all of them (read: Grantaire) exclusive daily access to the liquor storage. Even more perfectly, Bahorel turned out to be a more than decent man and drinking companion, which was all it took for Grantaire to nod him off as someone worth spending his time with Jehan.

Still, as the weeks went on, with about one show per seven days, it got increasingly more difficult for Grantaire to tell himself that he did not loath his job. It was utterly ridiculous considering that after years of more or less gruesome physical work, he found himself sitting in a warm place for a few hours a day with paper, light and the possibility to smuggle drinks into if he tried hard enough, which was everything Grantaire had ever wanted from life.

Sometimes, when Grantaire had been staring long enough, when his mind was able to look past the siren's gaze (which Grantaire was still not sure if it had no magical remedies in its own), he could catch a glimpse of what he had seen that first time. The young very much human man, not looking older than 20, being pushed into a giant cage. Only it was worse now, because Grantaire had spent enough time staring at the creature to look past its beauty and terror. It might have been ridiculous to think of an inherently evil and magical being as looking sickly, or exhausted, or pale, or weak, or slightly too gaunt. But he couldn't help himself.

As show after show went by, Grantaire found that his nervous energy around the siren, which he’d hoped would abate, was increasing. Pent-up energy thrummed under his skin, through his muscles that were so used to physical labour that he couldn’t sleep at night, no matter how exhausted. At the same time, he couldn’t fully get used to the siren’s presence, either, although it usually slept through Grantaire’s night shifts.

Stupidly, this made it even more difficult to pass the time. It would have felt rude to make too much noise through those hours when the siren was clearly trying to sleep. God knows Grantaire knew how it felt to need rest.

One evening, a good two months into their new lives, Grantaire entered the room to find the siren standing atop its bed, staring out of the small window high up on the wall. He wondered if this was cause for alarm, the way it held onto the bars, but shrugged and assumed the guard that had just left would have mentioned it if that was the case.

Grantaire simply settled down on his stool and watched. What was it doing? They had been travelling over nothing but open fields all day, so there could hardly be anything of interest out there. He had almost written it off to the oddities he should expect from a creature like this when he remembered Éponine mentioning they were close to civilisation only some minutes prior.

"Are you looking for the town?", Grantaire asked, not expecting an answer, maybe to fill the silence, maybe to give his nagging brain something to do.

The siren didn’t react. Of course. "It's supposed to be beautiful, Éponine says. Something about a specific kind of flower, or tree, or something. I have to admit that I didn’t listen too closely."

It was barefoot. Did they give it some kind of footwear for on stage? Grantaire didn’t seem to be able to remember.

"I think the name sounds familiar, though. Something with a B. Perhaps my parents took me there at some point, or a poet Jehan has told me about was born there. I admit readily how awful I am with names. Anyhow, I don’t understand his obsession with certain persons. Jehan, I mean. He tends to idolise poets he admires, which I find rather naive. No matter someone's ability to form beautiful verses, they’re still human, so how great can they be? It’s the same with those political leaders he adores, those that claim to want to give power to the people. But then he goes and follows individual men himself. Revolutionary thinkers, sure, but isn’t it still hypocritical? To believe that a man could fix what another man ruined. To believe that men can fix what mankind ruined."

Grantaire watched as the siren's fingers curled tighter around the bars, then uncurled again. Not for the first time, he wondered if there was a possibility that it could, in fact, understand him. He wouldn’t mind, necessarily, since he never ranted about anything of importance. Still, he couldn’t imagine where a creature of the sea would have picked up a human language. He considered it unlikely that all of its guards had been as talkative as Grantaire.

***

There was another night, weeks after this. They had been on the road between the two shows for fifteen days at this point and to say that Grantaire was exhausted was an understatement. For some reason he slept even worse when the carriage was moving, which was ironic considering the place he’d spent his night the last few years. It was especially unfortunate because he’d been working almost exclusively during nighttime, cutting short the time they were stationary and Grantaire was free to sleep.

So, if he was in a worse mood than usual walking up to Montparnasse, who had apparently been forced to take up guard duties again by lack of personnel, you could most definitely blame it on his sleep deprivation. That, and perhaps also the fact that he was forced to face this night sober, knowing he would fall asleep eventually if he allowed himself any liquor.

And if he had the short-lasting impulse to strangle the man stepping out of the carriage, yawning and wishing him a good night, that was also not his own personal fault, thank you very much.

The siren was sitting up in its bed, leaning against the wall, eyes closed. The door got locked behind Grantaire as he settled down for a very long night. A very, very long night, judging by the way his eyes were already threatening to droop shut the second he tried to concentrate them on the desk.

He forced them open and up. Grantaire could feel himself frown at no one. Although the siren was sitting in the same way it frequently did, there was something _off_. It was about how its body drooped against the wood and metal behind it, how its head shook slightly with the wagon's jostling that had not yet ceased for the night. How its hands were lying on each side on the mattress instead of in its lap. Was it possible that the siren's complexion had lost even more of the already unhealthy colouring?

"Hey," Grantaire said. He wasn't sure what he was trying to achieve, not really. But as so often, his mouth did not wait for permission from his brain. " _Hey_."

The creature's eyes slid open agonisingly slowly. They were dull and glassy, void of the life they usually held. Compared to its usual movements, sharp and fast, hatred or resistance or both in each one of them, Grantaire was convinced that this wasn’t just normal exhaustion.

"Are you feeling unwell?"

It opened its eyes wider only by a fraction and took all of him in. The rest of its body stayed unmoving.

Grantaire kept its gaze for another second before getting up. He was careful not to cross the line on the ground, half of him expecting this to be a trick as he took the two steps toward the door and knocked twice.

"What?" Montparnasse asked as he swung it open, one eyebrow cocked.

"I’m widely sorry for disturbing your rest," Grantaire said, "But I’m somewhat sure that the siren is halfway dead."

Montparnasse frowned past him and took a step inside the door. The siren was watching them from drooping eyes.

He shook his head. "Don't be ridiculous. It's even _awake_. What do you expect could possibly be wrong with it? Should it have caught a cold?"

He laughed, and Grantaire tried hard not to make any kind of comment that could earn him the bad favour of a man with power over which shifts he was assigned. "I was wondering if maybe it has not had enough to drink."

Montparnasse looked at Grantaire as if he had declared himself to be the King of France. "The thing's been fed as usual after the last show. Spend your energy on your actual responsibilities and think twice next time before you knock for something like this." He turned to go.

"Wait," Grantaire said, convinced he was running into his own demise. "He's not been given _water_?"

Both his tone and his words were more surprising to himself than they could have been to Montparnasse, whose stare had grown even more bewildered.

"Listen," he said after a second, smile just a little strained, "It’s very cute how you worry about our friend here, but also pointless. _It_ will not die on us, trust me, for it has gone way longer periods of time without any food or drink. Which has been its own fault, I must add, for acting up. The arrangement is that it gets to eat and drink after performing, which has been working great in the way of motivation after the initial few months of resistance. So, I’m going to ask you again to _get back to work_."

Grantaire locked his jaw shut as tightly as he could and nodded. Montparnasse stared at him for a second longer before stepping outside and locking them in again.

The siren was still looking at him when he turned around. _But he's a sea creature_ , Grantaire thought, and he did not think much else for the rest of the night. For the first time, he couldn’t ignore that everything about this was wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you only really notice just HOW slowburn a story is until you edit and update one chapter per week I'm so sorry.
> 
> thank you!


	5. Advice That I Can't Keep

_I memorize the ceiling_  
_With a fire at my feet_  
_While I give myself_  
_Advice that I can't keep_  
_I no longer ask myself_  
_What any of this means_  
_I just want my mind to quit_  
_So I can finally fall asleep_

\- "Hard of Hearing" by Radical Face

* * *

It was Cosette who finally spoke up, one evening during a show, after her own performance. They were travelling further and further South and the sun was annoyingly hot for the early summer. Grantaire was sitting with her, Marius, and Jehan in the shade of the wagon farthest away from the tent, trying to get his mind off what was going on in there. At least today, he could focus on how after the show the siren would be given food and water again.

Cosette was sitting with her dress spread out around her in the grass. Grantaire hoped she wouldn’t get in trouble for the inevitable stains.

"It's awful, isn't it?", she said.

Marius looked up from where he had been tracing patterns with his finger in Cosette's palm. He glanced at Grantaire, then back down. "What is?", he asked, his hollow tone leaving no doubt that he already knew.

"What they are doing to the siren," said Cosette. "We. What we are doing to the siren."

"Yes," Jehan said, proving Grantaire wrong, who had assumed that he’d fallen asleep stretched out in the grass. "Yes, it is."

Marius looked towards where they knew the tent was, although it was out of view behind the carriages. "I agree, although I wouldn’t say that we are the ones at fault here."

Cosette pulled her hand back into her lap.

Grantaire dropped the pencil from his hand. He hadn't been able to concentrate, anyway. He said, "Bless your confidence, but we are most definitely at fault, like everyone else who ever purchased a ticket."

Jehan turned around to face Grantaire. Cosette looked like she hadn't expected this kind of support from him. Was it really so surprising to hear him agree with anyone? Or was it that they didn't expect him to have a sense of morality?

"Right!", said Cosette. "But in contrary to the audiences, we’re in a position to actually do something."

Grantaire snorted. "Not to be cynical, dear Cosette, but I’m afraid there is not a single thing we could do."

Jehan rolled his eyes. "Grantaire, don’t just be-"

"No," Grantaire interrupted him, already anticipating his friend's words. "Just this once, believe me that _I am right about this_. You think we should rescue that poor siren, free him, since we’re inside the enemy's lines? There simply isn't a way. We are four people, five if Bahorel would help, six if we somehow got Éponine to turn against her family. There are more than a dozen more or less mindless and more or less shifty men around who do not think like us, who wouldn’t refrain from doing what it takes not to lose their source of income. And there is no way we could manage a rescue attempt with stealth alone. That carriage is insanely locked up and secured, and there is a man with a rifle outside the damned door at all times."

"But you're already one of those guards!" said Jehan. "If we could get Éponine to join us, if she could manage to take one of the shifts to guard the wagon's outside door, there could be-"

"No," Grantaire said again, a little more vehemently than necessary. "We cannot force her into this, not if it requires her to leave Azelma behind. And even if that were no issue, her parents do not trust her. She would never be allowed a task like that."

Jehan was beginning to look irritated. "What about me? I could ask for more responsibilities, claim that I am bored."

Grantaire had to shake his head again. "You’re welcome to try, but they would never let two men they do not know well guard him alone. Especially not us, since Montparnasse dislikes me for asking questions. He might be a greasy fellow, but he’s also a smart one. He would smell any plan we might have miles in advance."

He sighed, rubbing a hand across his face. "And all of this is still ignoring the fact that we are dealing with a siren, and it doesn’t matter if we saved his life. There is no way after all these years that he wouldn’t use the earliest opportunity to take down any- and everyone who was in any way affiliated with this- this _circus_. I know that's what I would do. We would all be dead minutes after freeing him."

For a long couple of minutes, none of his friends had anything else to say in return, and something inside Grantaire clenched painfully.

Marius stared down at his own hand, defeated, Jehan at the sky, frustrated, Cosette at Grantaire, blankly. None of them pointed out a flaw in Grantaire's logic, something he had missed while over-thinking this during his sleepless nights.

They were forcing him to believe his own judgement and he despised them for it.

Grantaire took a large swig from his bottle, and another one.

"Should we not quit, then?", Cosette asked. "Stop helping these people?"

"I suppose it would be the right thing to do," Marius said.

"Oh, quiet, Marius," Jehan said, sitting up. Loose grass was sticking to his back, and Grantaire couldn’t stop staring at it. "You’re simply sick of this life. I say that it would not change a thing if we left. If we stayed, however, there is a chance that we might find a way to free the siren if we keep working here. Just for the year, at least."

"Joly, Bossuet and 'Chetta might be able to help us," Grantaire said, although how, he didn’t know. Again, he was met by eyes that seemed disbelieving that he was contributing to the conversation with something that was neither joke nor a counterargument.

Cosette looked at him with question marks in her eyes. Marius spoke up for him. "Our friends in Paris. I have told you about them."

"Of course," Cosette said, smiling like it was the greatest idea. "They study the law, don’t they? They might find a way to put an end to this through the authorities."

Grantaire didn’t point out how useless the authorities would be in this case, or how they would all be in danger of being convicted themselves if anything about this company would indeed be judged illegal. He was sick of being the one to explain reality to his friends.

“I wonder if we could find a way for him to trust us,” said Cosette. Something must have shown on Grantaire’s face, because she added, “I’m not saying I know how, but if we _did_. All we had to do is figure out a way to distract one man, correct? You can’t possibly tell me that every single guard takes his duty seriously.”

Grantaire was chewing on the insides of his cheek. He sighed. “Even if all stars aligned and we managed to free him, and not get killed, that would have been the smallest of our problems. Just from the little I’ve overheard from the other workers and Éponine, Thénardier is frighteningly well connected. The siren would have France’s entire criminal society trying to hunt him down the second he stepped outside of that wagon. There is a minimal chance he’d even reach the ocean.”

“Next year, though,” said Jehan, “We’ll pass our town again, correct? Or somewhere close by. We'd be only two miles from the sea, at most. That could be a chance.”

Everyone was looking to Grantaire, seemingly waiting for him to shut down this idea as well.

He shrugged. “I suppose so,” he said. Jehan raised his eyebrows like he couldn’t believe he wasn't hearing words of protest. “A small chance, but it’s there.”

Jehan bit his lip in thought. He let go, and said, "The siren can’t speak, I suppose?"

"I can’t say for sure about his capabilities, but I suppose that hardly matters considering he’s constantly wearing a mask that prevents him from making any sound."

Jehan's mouth twisted in distaste. "Yes, I should have expected something like this. But you have tried speaking to him?"

Grantaire pulled the bottle from his lips. "I do speak to him, and by now I’m almost sure that he does understand me. Well, I don’t blame him for not trying to engage in a conversation through sign language with me. I suppose I will just keep trying."

Jehan nodded.

Cosette and Marius kept talking about possible rescue plans, and while they were all flawed and therefore pointless, Grantaire would always have chosen this over their defeated silence from before.

He had always imagined that his friends needed him as a voice of reason, to bring them back to reality, but it might have just been the other way around. Maybe Grantaire needed them to keep his hope that this world was not as rotten as it looked through his own eyes.

***

Grantaire was as relieved as he was horrified to find that after the show, he found the siren looking as it always had. No sign of the near-delusional state he had been in before, no thirst, just a pair of unsettlingly awake eyes staring at him. Grantaire was glad to see that it really hadn’t been a more serious condition, but at the same time, it took all his self-control not to walk up to Thénardier and punch his nose right into his brain. This was no way to treat an animal, not even a monster, and the siren was far from both.

But Grantaire had to lay low, win everyone's trust, no matter how pointless he knew it was. So, he breathed, and he breathed some more, and he kept working. They would be outside of Paris in a few months’ time and see Musichetta, Joly and Bossuet, and that is what Grantaire clang to. In the meantime, he tried to be glad to have the siren's fully-charged furious eyes on him and passed the hours by talking.

The joke was that Grantaire had learned to despise the rare day-shift more than the ones at nighttime, since they served for nothing but to mess up his sleep pattern even more. He was also not sure how he felt about seeing the siren move about the room instead of watching him sleep for most of his shift.

It had been nerve-wrecking the first few weeks, back when Grantaire was sure that every move was designed to somehow trick or kill him, but he had since grown accustomed to his habits. There wasn’t much to do, obviously, but the siren usually spent his waking hours by looking outside, pacing about, or fiddling around with his chain.

The latter had alarmed Grantaire at first, but the guard that had been outside at the time had assured him that there was no way it would get the metal off himself, and they were sure he just did it to annoy whoever was guarding him with the noise. Grantaire wasn’t fully convinced, but he agreed that the sound was close to driving him insane on most days.

"What are you doing?", Grantaire asked that day close to Paris when the siren was doing it again. He hadn’t really been sleeping all night, which Grantaire was almost grateful for as it gave him a reason to stay awake as well.

The siren looked small, and young, sitting on the floorboards cross-legged and pulling at the chain on his foot. Grantaire tried not to look too hard at the chafing wounds on this ankle and the older ones at the other. At least whoever's task it was to fasten the clasp each time had enough decency to change which foot was bound.

The siren gave him a look that reminded Grantaire not to underestimate him, no matter how young he somehow seemed, and went back to hitting the chain against the floorboards. Grantaire would have deemed it a child's play if he did not look so utterly bored by it.

"They say you do that to annoy me," continued Grantaire. He was sitting on top of his desk, also cross-legged, hoping to stay awake easier without something to lean against. He felt stupid, essentially talking into empty space, but he’d also promised Jehan to keep trying, so that was what he did.

"I wouldn’t hold it against you, you know. Honestly, I wouldn’t hold it against you if you went and killed me and everyone else around here."

He stopped the noise and simply stared at his ankle for a second. Then, he got up and looked out of the window.

"I'm afraid you won't find much of interest out there, except if you had a passion for trees. Although I suppose everything is of more interest than these damned floorboards. I can count the times I have been inside here on, well, not two hands, but also not that many, and I already hate the colour of the wood. Do you not just despise it?"

The siren kept staring outside.

"I have to say, I’m glad you’re doing so much better than before. I had planned to bring something to drink with me for my next shift but realised that there was no way you could drink with that _thing_ on. I apologise for not risking my life for that, but believe me that I am genuinely relieved to see you better."

Grantaire rubbed the skin on his face in an effort to stay awake. He couldn’t have stopped talking if he wanted to out of fear of falling asleep and off the table.

"I do wonder if you understand me. Sometimes I feel like you do, but then again I cannot think of a reason why a creature from the sea would be able to understand my language. Well, you’ve been listening to my useless rantings for a while, I suppose. Still." Grantaire stared at the back of the siren's head. His hair almost completely covered the dozen straps and knots that fastened the mask in his neck.

"Do you?", Grantaire asked, waiting a few seconds before adding, "I mean, do you understand me?"

The siren didn’t answer, but something in his stance shifted, and Grantaire was suddenly sure of it.

"But… how? Can you- can you talk, as well?"

Grantaire would pride himself for a long time to come that he did not, in that moment, fall backwards off his table. One second the siren was standing on his bed, back turned, and the next, he was closer than Grantaire had ever seen him, chain pulled taught on his foot. His anger glowed almost as strong as it had on the very first night, if not stronger, and while Grantaire was still too far away for the siren to be able to reach over even if he’d tried to use his full body length, he was unable to breathe for a moment.

He didn't try to reach Grantaire. He simply glared at him, pointed with a sharp webbed finger to his mask, and kept glaring.

"Oh," Grantaire said. "Well, indeed, I know you cannot talk through that stupid thing. I was thinking maybe you could simply nod, or-"

The siren stomped with his chained foot, making Grantaire believe for a second that he was trying to break free. He very nearly lost his balance again and deemed it safer to get off the desk.

"Very well, I understand. You have no reason to want to communicate with me, anyhow, and-" Just then, an idea crossed his mind. "I do not mean to insult you yet again in one way or another, but is there a chance that you can write as well?"

Truthfully, Grantaire expected no answer at all, or maybe a genuine attempt at freeing himself to reach his throat. Instead, the siren stayed unmoving for a handful of breaths before it gave a single, sharp nod.

Grantaire blinked. "In that case," he said, taking a sheet of paper and pencil out of his jacket pocket. He paused for a moment and thought if there was a way that either could be used as weapons before deciding that a tiny stump of wood was more useless than, for example, that ratty blanket. "Here you go."

Grantaire slid the paper - almost free of his own scribbles - and pencil over the floor to where the siren stood. He stared down at the paper at his feet for a few moments, up at Grantaire, then down again.

"In, um," Grantaire said. "In case you want to communicate something, I suppose. It does occur to me now that this might seem like I’m doing it for Thénardier, a weird attempt at tricking you, but I can assure you that I hate that man as much as anybody else who has ever been subjected to hearing him talk for any period of time."

The siren didn’t move. Grantaire sighed. "Of course, if I was you, I wouldn’t trust me, either. But perhaps you could simply start by telling me if you have a name."

Another breath passed before the siren finally picked up the paper, glanced up at Grantaire again, and walked two steps over to the wall to write against.

Again, it looked at Grantaire for a moment before turning the paper so that he could read. The letters were big and clear to read.

"'Enjolras'," Grantaire read. A French name. "Has it been yours for your whole life?"

Something shifted in Enjolras's eyes when Grantaire spoke his name. He nodded once.

"How so? Would you mind telling me some things about your past?"

Instantly, Enjolras's gaze was burning its way through Grantaire's again. He hurried to say, "No, of course not, I apologise. I shouldn’t ask for information one could so easily use against you or your, uh, family? I didn’t mean to offend."

Enjolras frowned, then turned to the wall again and wrote something down. Although he held the pencil a bit awkwardly between his webbed fingers, Grantaire was surprised to find that he wrote in cursive. Where in all heavens could he have learnt any of this?

Enjolras showed him the paper. _You have been offending me for weeks with your political opinions, for instance,_ it stated in tidy writing.

Grantaire blinked. His laughter almost surprised himself. "Pardon me, but what kind of political opinions exactly have I voiced to you?"

This time, Enjolras didn’t hesitate before putting pen to paper. Grantaire watched as his writing grew quicker and quicker and slowly filled up the page, until he had to turn it around. He had to contain his laughter when the other side was soon filled with Enjolras's writing as well. He never once paused to think.

Finally, it seemed that he had to cramp the last sentence into the very last available corner before Enjolras lifted the now very blunt pencil. He was crouching to slide it back to Grantaire already, looking right at him, when they heard the key turn in the door behind Grantaire.

In the span of seconds, Enjolras had flung the page and pencil across the room, collected with slight difficulty from Grantaire. Enjolras was curled up in his usual sleeping position on the bed and Grantaire had just stuffed the writing into his pocket when the door opened, and he looked at the guard outside.

"Finally," said Grantaire as if he was not currently cursing the early morning sun he could now see rising outside. They weren't moving yet, but behind the guard he could see people outside getting the horses ready. "I thought this night would never end."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so in my head, Joly and Bossuet go to university and bring Musichetta all the books and lecture notes she needs to study as well, but it really doesn't matter for this story as far as I can tell at this point so you're free to imagine that women are allowed to attend university in this AU.
> 
> also, I tried to find out for this chapter when graphite pencils were invented and turns out they weren't available in France during around 1804-1818 or so and it’s Napoleon’s fault. I have no idea if Napoleon exists in this AU and also the story takes place a little later but the more you know!
> 
> ALSO also, you can't believe how happy I am that I can fucking finally use Enjolras's name. if I have to type "siren" one more time I swear to Jesus
> 
> thank you!


	6. I'm a Cynic, I Told You, I Don't Believe

_I'm a cynic, I told you, I fear what I don't believe_  
_I don't know what this is, but this is a different beast_  
_I check the lock on the door three times_  
_Can't put my faith in what I can't describe_  
_I'm a cynic, I told you, I don't believe_

\- "Clean Eyes" by SYML

* * *

Outside, Grantaire took his time stretching his arms, trying not to look like somebody who was in a panic over where to go in this goddamned circus where no one would find them. Finally, he decided to walk into the small forest next to which they had set camp for the night, trusting that whoever might see him would assume he was going to relieve himself.

A few dozen metres into the trees, close enough that he would notice if the company started to leave and far enough not to be seen, Grantaire sat down on an only remotely damp rock and began to read.

> _If I possessed any kind of trust in Th_ _énardier's intelligence, I would assume that he placed you here simply to mock me. As it is, I will believe him to be as oblivious to the stupidity of your opinions as you yourself seem to be. It is beyond me how anyone could voice what you have and think of it as neither fatal, nor even political._
> 
> _Let me start by addressing your general lack of understanding as to how change is brought by. You claim to be aware of the terrible state your nation is in, and then call your own friends naive for being eager to improve it in any way. Men like you, who are intelligent enough to see where change is due and dense enough to ignore this necessity, are worse than those who are entirely oblivious._
> 
> _It might be reckless of your friends not to think their actions fully through. However, it will be them bringing a better life to the people. It will be you spending the revolution passed out from drink - do not think I have not noticed this flaw of yours - and a physical hindrance if anything._
> 
> _As for your claim of it being ignorant of your friend, Jean I believe was his name, to be prone to admiring poets as well as political figures, I believe this to be telling of your lack of faith more than his ignorance. One's existence is no doubt difficult to perform flawlessly, and I will agree with you on this one single thought: No one is able to reach perfection. It is, however, your own mistake to expect this from anyone. While I am not personally acquainted with Jean, I dare believe him not to be blind about this in his admiration of great thinkers._
> 
> _Regarding political leaders, I welcome you to think of a way to bring by change, of a way to lead a nation, that does not require the picture of a person in the people's minds into which they can project their wishes and put their trust. It would certainly be ideal if the people could be moved to action with the movement's motivation alone; however, this has proved rather unsuccessful in the ways of convincing a large number of women and men to join your side._
> 
> _It would be ideal, of course, if the people could lead themselves. However, if one tried to achieve for the masses to stand behind this idea, it is an unavoidable truth that something akin to a Face of the Cause would be indispensable. I must admit that I am not fully informed of political changes in the last two years, so pardon me if this ignorance is obvious in my thought process._
> 
> _Anyhow, I would appreciate if you would be so kind as to explain to me what you are trying to achieve by your relentless attempts at having me communicate with you - especially if they truly are behind your employer's back, as you claim._

Grantaire stared at the words before him for longer than he would ever admit.

It took him a second reading to overcome his surprise at the siren's eloquence, and a third for his brain to take Enjolras's opinions in. He did not agree with half of them, although he couldn’t help but admire the conviction in which they were delivered.

What stunned Grantaire the most was the optimism Enjolras seemed to possess towards everything: that political change was unavoidable, that Grantaire's friends were more intelligent than he thought them to be, that the masses would do the right thing if only nudged in that direction.

Truly, Grantaire would have coloured him mad, not becoming a pessimist through the conditions he had been living in for so long, had it not been for Enjolras's remarks on Grantaire's ignorance. At least there was one point they were agreed on. Two, considering how none of them believed in truly faultless persons.

Grantaire only stood up from his spot, having grown cold in the early morning shade, when calls announced their imminent departure. He folded the paper neatly this time and pocketed it, making his way back to the company in search of Jehan.

Grantaire suppressed a comment about how he should have expected to find him with Bahorel when he did just that. The two men were getting finished arranging the bottles of liquor loaded on a carriage in such a way that nothing would break over this day's journey.

Bahorel smiled his usual wide smile when he spotted Grantaire. "Look who cares to join us just when the work is done, and the alcohol not yet locked away."

Jehan's look was more disapproving. "Really, Grantaire. This early in the morning? Shouldn’t you rather get something to eat and go to rest, if you need to work again tonight?"

"If I didn’t know better, I would think I just heard my mother speak," said Grantaire. "But believe it or not, I come to talk to you, Jehan, and am personally affronted to hear what you both truly think of me."

At Bahorel's raised eyebrow, he added, "Not that I wouldn’t welcome if a bottle of wine mysteriously fell off the wagon today."

Jehan jumped off the carriage. "So speak."

Grantaire looked at Bahorel, who had followed Jehan, as he said, "Well, it’s a rather personal matter that might better be discussed privately."

They both blinked at Grantaire for a moment before Jehan smiled. With a quiet voice he said, "If this has something to do with what we talked about during the last show, you need not worry, for Bahorel shares our opinion."

Bahorel shrugged, looking almost guilty. "To be quite honest, I hadn’t thought much about the conditions the siren is held in during the months I have worked here, since I am not in direct contact with it. When Jehan asked me about it, however, I had to agree. Inhumane. If you have any ideas about how to change it, I would be glad to be of help."

Grantaire frowned. "Are you not worried about losing your source of income?"

Again, Bahorel shrugged. "I have never held a position for much longer than this one and am not too firmly attached to the work. The pay might be decent, but in terms of employers it is quite lacking. I would barely bat an eye if I had to search for another place of work tomorrow."

Grantaire nodded. He admired the man's adaptability. "Very well," he said.

Just then, shouts about their departure reached them. Grantaire settled onto the driver's bench with the other two men, Jehan in the middle in charge of leading the horses, telling himself that he had plenty of time to catch rest later in the day. At least they could be almost sure not to be disturbed here this early in the day. Everyone who wasn’t needed somewhere was still or again asleep inside the wagons.

Still, Grantaire kept his voice as low as possible when he said, "His name is Enjolras. He can write."

Both Jehan and Bahorel looked lost for a second before remembering the context.

"What?," said Jehan. "How do you know?"

Grantaire handed Bahorel the paper, Jehan occupied with leading the horses out to a proper road before he could let go of the reins.

"Because of this," said Grantaire. "He wrote this."

"A French name?", said Jehan, glancing back and forth between the page and the carriage travelling before them. "Does that mean that sirens speak in the language of a country they live close to, or in? Or where did he pick it up?"

"I thought the same, but he seems hesitant to tell me about anything of importance. For obvious reasons."

"What is this, then?", said Jehan, just when Bahorel started to laugh.

"Comedy is what this is," he said. "Two full pages of political theory."

"What?", said Jehan, his expression a cross between confusion and amusement.

"Well, I might have talked some nonsense about politics to him. To my defence, I didn’t know he would understand me, or quite literally memorise every sentence I ever said and pick it apart in a letter."

"Oi," said Bahorel. "He mentions you, Jehan!"

"I am so confused," said Jehan. "Read it to me, please."

Bahorel did, while Grantaire tried not to either start laughing out loud or bury his face in his hands.

Jehan was smiling earnestly by the time Bahorel was finished. "I like him," he said. "Although I do have to wonder what and why you told him about me."

"Again," Grantaire said, hands raised, "I didn’t think he would listen, or understand. I simply rambled on about how you and the others will one day get yourselves killed over some futile cause, which I stand by."

"And you called me naive," said Jehan, although his expression was still rather amused.

Grantaire rolled his eyes. "Not in those words," he said, although he had a faint memory of doing just that. "Could we please go back to the matter at hand? The si-, Enjolras, he is intelligent. And _educated_. How in all heavens is that possible?"

Of course, Grantaire would be the last person to suggest that one needed a classic school education to achieve the knowledge Enjolras seemed to possess, himself having learnt what little he knew of the world from all sorts of people and a handful of books that had found their way to him for one reason or another.

Still, it was hard to believe that Enjolras had been his own sole teacher.

"Maybe," Bahorel said after a moment, "He just learnt from being around humans for two years."

"To understand the barest of language, maybe," said Jehan, "But I doubt that the Thénardiers, or someone employed by them, would have sat him down and taught him to read. They barely feed him enough to keep alive."

Bahorel nodded. "He must have been in contact with humans before, then."

"Or it is common in siren culture to know language."

Grantaire pulled at a curl that kept bouncing into his eye from the unruly ground they were still passing. "No, at least some of them need to be in contact with human society. How else would he know about current affairs?"

"Right," said Jehan. "Tell me, what did you answer him about your motives to try and talk to him?"

Grantaire snorted. "Nothing. My shift was over right then. I can count myself lucky that I was not caught, if I’m honest."

"Good," said Bahorel. "It might be dangerous to tell him that you’re trying to help. Who knows what he might try to trick you into if he knew of your goodwill.”

Grantaire had already opened his mouth to protest when he cut himself off. Bahorel was right, of course.

Jehan seemed doubtful. "But how will we get him to trust in Grantaire, then? We might just have to risk telling the truth. As for tricks, I do believe that he must have tried anything in his abilities to flee during the last years already. And Grantaire," he looked directly at him, "Will be careful, and not do anything but talk with Enjolras, especially nothing that he proposes, before consulting with us."

Grantaire just nodded.

"If you say so," said Bahorel, and his voice carried no doubt. He simply shrugged and trusted Jehan, and Grantaire had to look at him for a moment longer.

Jehan took another glance at Grantaire. "I mean it," he stressed. "Remember his nature. He probably knows more ways to get his will from any man he wishes than the most talented of seducer."

Grantaire rolled his eyes, but nodded again. "I take it that today's consultation is over now, yes? Because I," said Grantaire, reaching behind him for the first bottle that fell into his hand, which happened to be wine, "Have important matters to attend to."

He had already jumped off the wagon and walked with it a safe few metres off, but none of the men attempted to reach for him or the bottle. Jehan merely shook his head. "At least eat something with that, will you? And take your love letter. We will have to find a place to keep it safe."

Grantaire took the folded-up paper from Bahorel, who was grinning. "I would hardly call it a love letter," he said silently to Jehan.

"I heard that," said Grantaire, "Not that I don't agree."

He made towards the sleep wagon before his pride could be any more wounded, careful to have the paper safely inside his jacket before he uncorked the bottle and took a first swig.

Food could wait until later. He had a brain full of racing thoughts and needed the wine's help to shut it down in order to get any sleep before his next shift.

***

It was strange how Grantaire found himself and Éponine fall back into much of the same habits they had formed as children, and it made him wonder if their relationship was simply founded on being each other's coping mechanism instead of actual friendship.

Éponine would show up with a bottle of liquor or three, her expression making it more than clear that she had not had an enjoyable day with her family, and Grantaire would silently drink with her. If she wanted to speak about it, she would do so after a few long gulps into their endeavour.

With Grantaire, it was the other way around: He would show up, knowing that Éponine needed no more than a glimpse of his face to tell that something was off. Oftentimes, he regretted coming to her as soon as her prodding questions started, but eventually, he had no other choice but to pour his heart out.

Remarkably enough, even when Éponine had no advice to offer and resorted to teasing instead, there was still to be one instance when he had not felt somewhat better afterwards.

Maybe this was what friendship was supposed to be like after all.

It was almost embarrassing, Grantaire thought, that the only difference from when they had been children was the amount of alcohol they could stomach during their conversations.

That afternoon, when Grantaire rose from hours of trying-to-sleep rather than actual sleep, he almost shoved Éponine off the wagon's steps when swinging the sleep wagon’s door open. She and Azelma were utilising the shade there (as well as a spot securely away from their parents, Grantaire assumed) to stretch out their legs and eat grapes they had piled up between them.

"Careful," said Éponine, "Don’t assume my spirit wouldn’t be glad to haunt you if I were to be trampled by a horse over your clumsiness."

Grantaire raised an eyebrow and sank down with his back to the door between the two sisters, taking a handful of grapes himself. "What a tragedy that would be," he said, "Although one could write novellas about us. 'The sailor and the dead witch.'"

"'The spirit and the drunkard," Éponine retorted.

"'The artist and the circus director's deceased daughter'."

"What about me?", Azelma said, popping a new grape into her mouth.

Another aspect of their lives that had apparently not changed since childhood: Azelma was still a little sister through and through, and both Grantaire and Éponine tended to forget about her presence in their banter.

Éponine half-smiled. "'The artist and the circus director's deceased daughter and the circus director's surviving daughter?'"

"'The artist and the two circus sisters,'" Grantaire supplied. He ate another one of the grapes warming in his hand, although the taste did nothing but remind him of the wine still lingering at the back of his mouth. His stomach grumbled loudly in protest.

Éponine didn’t even spare a glance at Grantaire before saying to her smiling sister, "Azelma, go and get us something proper to eat, alright? I'm starving."

Azelma only grumbled a little when she slipped off the wagon, used to listening to her sister.

"So," said Éponine as soon as Azelma was out of sight, "What is it that you, Jehan and Bahorel are planning?"

Grantaire smiled and crossed his legs under him. "What ever could you be alluding to?"

Éponine's face remained unimpressed. "Grantaire."

"Yes."

She glared at him silently for a few moments. "I overheard them talking, about your lawyer friends in Paris and secrecy and a letter. They told me to ask you about it."

"Oh," Grantaire said, eating grapes again for lack of something to do with his hands, "That is easy, then. Our friend 'Chetta, she keeps sending Marius letters declaring her admiration, and he has never reciprocated her feelings, but now with Cosette he feels the ne-"

But she knew him and his quick lies too well. " _Grantaire_."

Again, he smiled. "Yes?"

Éponine shifted in her seat, and for a second, Grantaire was sure that she was about to strangle him, or at least stand for the advantage of height.

She just sighed. "I don't understand you. There isn't a single reason you and your friends would have to be hiding things from me. You know I can be trusted."

Grantaire stopped smiling. Christ, this would have been a lot easier if it hadn’t been for the way his head was swimming from lack of sleep and food combined with too much wine.

"No," he said, "It’s not a lack of trust that makes me reluctant to tell you. Rather, I’m worried that you will be pulled into something you are better off not knowing about, for your own sake."

Éponine's expression did not change. "Let me tell you that in all my life I have not learnt a single thing that I later regretted knowing."

Grantaire only held her gaze for a second longer before averting it. He sighed. "I suppose I would have talked to you at one point or another, anyway. It affects you too much."

Éponine raised an eyebrow. "I’m all ears."

Grantaire looked around. Not only did they have no clear sight of who could be just around the corner, but they were also travelling on a busy road, other wagons and carriages and horses passing them every few minutes. This was no place to tell Éponine about their plan to ruin her family's business.

"Not here," Grantaire said. "It’s-"

That was when Azelma returned, with nothing but bread and butter in hand. As soon as she was in ear shot, she said, "Sorry, this is all I could get. They saw me and said we're close to settling for the night anyway, and that what we have stocked needs to last until Paris."

Éponine sighed, taking the rather old loaf and butter and glaring at it. "Misers. I know for a fact that we have plenty left, but I’m not surprised. Do you want some?"

Azelma shook her head. "I need to go talk to mum, anyway. She just shouted something about cleaning duties, and I promised to be back."

Éponine closed her eyes in annoyance. "Alright. Tell me if there’s trouble."

"I will," said Azelma, and went away.

" _Is_ she in trouble?", Grantaire asked silently.

"Not more than usual," said Éponine. "She'll be fine."

Grantaire nodded. He looked around again. "We could talk in here," he said, gesturing to the door behind him. "It's unoccupied, and if somebody walked in, they would simply assume you were my mistress."

Éponine laughed a small, bitter laugh. "I hope this plan you and Jehan have is more thought-through than this. There is no way I will risk that. Isn’t there a stool inside? We could just barricade the door."

Grantaire got up. "Fair enough," he said.

Soon, they were sitting on the floor between the bunk beds where they could share the bread between them. Grantaire didn’t say so, but he would never have gotten the idea to complain about the plain food. After being so used to living off biscuits, pea soup and Goddamn salt pork, this was familiar, but more pleasant.

It almost made the task of telling Éponine that they were trying to find a way to free Enjolras less uncomfortable.

When Grantaire had finished his explanations, he forced himself to endure the long minute of Éponine chewing her bread wordlessly instead of rambling to fill the silence like he wanted.

Finally, Éponine swallowed, and said, "So, you are informing me that you and your friends, who I helped get work in my family's business, are planning to destroy just that."

Grantaire felt like he had forgotten how to breathe. "If you phrase it like _that_ -"

"Grantaire."

"I would try to avert the others from this plan," he said, "If you asked me to."

This only made Éponine's frown dig deeper between her brows. "Oh, grow a spine, will you."

Grantaire could feel his own mouth hang open for a few useless moments. "I’m trying to be a good friend to you, Épo-"

"To hell with friendship! If half of what you claim about the siren is true, what would _I_ matter?"

Grantaire was absolutely lost as to what was going on, and his throbbing temples did nothing to help. "Why are you angry with me? I was doing nothing but-"

"I am not-", Éponine started, and cut herself off with a sigh. She wiped a hand over her face before continuing, "Apologies. I’m angry with myself, if you want to know. Two years, and I didn’t once question the morality of this whole," she gesticulated to everything around her, " _Circus_. I mean, of course I knew that the men my parents tend to hire are questionable, and that the beer is watered down, and the way they handle finances is somewhat… But I never questioned that we have been keeping someone prisoner. A _person_."

"You didn't know," Grantaire attempted. "You never got near Enjolras, and even if you had, how would you have known?"

Éponine did not look up from her hands for a long while. When she did, her eyes looked more alive than Grantaire had seen them since they'd been children. "What's the plan?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> insert joke about Azelma stealing a loaf of bread
> 
> I made myself laugh writing this because,,, imagine Grantaire being all excited about Enjolras being able to communicate and then sitting on this stupid log in the middle of the fucking forest just reading an essay absolutely OWNING him
> 
> pls be aware that 1: I consider myself shamefully dense when it comes to politics and political theory and 2: I do not share or condone any political views just because I write about characters with them and 3: this story is set in a very different time with a very different political climate !
> 
> thank you!


	7. To Give You a Hand to Hold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ao3 won a Hugo tonight!! I'm so grateful for the amazing people that keep this site running, they DESERVE this

_I wish there was a way_  
_To give you a hand to hold_  
_You don't have to die in your glory_  
_To never grow old_

\- "Heroes" by MIKA

* * *

The next time Grantaire was on guard duty was the next day, at daytime, which would have annoyed him more if he hadn’t given up on his sleeping pattern to begin with.

He made sure he had a stack of paper and coal pencils - which he deemed less likely to be used as a weapon against him than graphite pencils - hidden in his jacket's lining, as well as a flask filled with rum stolen from Éponine to get him through the day. For a second, Grantaire considered bringing water for Enjolras, before he remembered his damned gag.

Enjolras was in bed when Grantaire entered the carriage and closed the door behind him. By the time he was facing Enjolras again, the latter was sitting up with a look Grantaire had never seen on him before.

For a second he was frozen in confusion, unable to place Enjolras’s expression. Only then did Grantaire realise that it was quite possibly the _lack_ of something that surprised him; a lack of fury, maybe. Enjolras's gaze was far from kind, which Grantaire did not blame him for, but it also lacked the usual fire behind its anger.

"Enjolras," said Grantaire, mindful to use his name, "Good morning." He slid the pen and paper over the floor like he'd done before. Enjolras immediately picked them up, had the paper pressed against his leg, ready to write, waiting, watching.

Grantaire sat on his desk, legs dangling in front of him, although he craved the feeling of security of having a piece of furniture between them. Sitting behind it, though, would have reminded him too much of his father sitting at his solid mahogany desk, or of his teacher asking him to come to the front and solve an equation everyone in the room knew he would fail at.

"So," said Grantaire. "I suppose you are waiting for an answer to your question."

Enjolras blinked once before he started writing. The letters were large enough, dark enough now, that Grantaire could make them out from the other side of the small room.

_You won't even try to argue my points?_

Looking at Enjolras's arched eyebrow, Grantaire couldn’t help but laugh, and he hoped that the walls were as isolated as they claimed and the sound wouldn’t reach the guard outside.

"I can try," he said, "And I'm afraid I am still ignorant enough to stand by my points. I am not ignorant enough, however, to believe I have any chance at winning an argument against you."

How was a cynic supposed to have the upper hand in an argument against someone with the underlying, if puzzling, optimism Enjolras seemed to possess towards the people?

Grantaire knew he was right to doubt the goodness of them, Enjolras's current situation being only one of countless examples. But he also knew that he had no energy left in him to try and convince the other of his lethally depressing, if correct, worldview.

Enjolras's wrote another line before lifting the paper again.

_How very noble of you._

Grantaire shrugged. "I have no misconceptions over my own frail sense of morality."

The memory of himself and Éponine sitting cross-legged on the floor, him telling her that he would drop his attempts at freeing Enjolras if it so much as inconvenienced her, flashed in front of his eyes. Grantaire found it much harder to meet Enjolras's gaze after that, and he trained his eyes on the place the chain was fastened to the floorboards instead. It didn’t help.

He took a swig from his flask, ignoring Enjolras's accusing stare. He didn’t move to write anything, however.

"As for your question about my intentions, which I now realise is likely to come off as less than convincing after what I just said," he carried on. "I know you’re more intelligent than to believe a word of what I say, at least for the time being. But the truth is that my friends, and also me, are aware of the, well, inhumanity of your situation, and would- like to help you out. Literally, that is. Help you _out_."

Enjolras blinked. And blinked again. Then, he wrote a single word.

 _Elaborate_.

Grantaire coughed. This had been a lot easier last night, when he'd practised what he would say with Jehan.

"I knew the Thénardiers as a child," he chose to begin. "I was friends with Éponine, their eldest daughter. I’m not sure if you know of her. When I met her again some months ago, I was aware that her parents were less than trustworthy. I still agreed to work for them because it was a chance to spend some time on land again with my childhood friends. And I admit that it took us, me, some time to even question this whole," he gestured around them, "Arrangement. You are surely aware of the, well, questionable reputation your kind have amongst humans, and we were surprised to find that you are an intelligent creature, which-"

Enjolras had started writing again, so Grantaire waited for what he had to say.

_So, you did not care as long as it was an animal being held like this?_

Grantaire read the question twice.

"Yes," he finally said. He wouldn’t be found holding an animal this way himself, but honestly, he wouldn’t have spoken up about it if he had witnessed it. It would have just been an animal, after all. There were enough horrible things happening to humans already for him to add the inner emotions of animals he needed to eat to survive on sea to the list of things his thoughts wound around when he failed to fall asleep.

Grantaire smiled. "Questionable morals, I told you. So, what do you think?" When Enjolras didn’t move, he added, "I suppose I’m asking if you believe anything of what I said."

Enjolras tapped pencil against paper for a few moments. Grantaire noticed that the gag was moving ever so slightly, as if he was working his jaw. Finally, Enjolras wrote something down, and stood up. He walked towards Grantaire as far as he could, which was not very far, but still left R gripping the edges of the table somewhat tighter.

 _All right_ , the paper read. _Prove it._

Somewhat awkwardly against his leg, Enjolras wrote something else.

_Let me take this mask off._

Grantaire looked at the paper for a long time, stupid enough to consider reaching out and doing it. But even if he had succeeded at convincing himself that this was not a decision that would condemn him to a painful death, Jehan’s words in the back of his mind reminded him not to do anything but talk with Enjolras before consulting with them.

Not for the first time, and not for the dozenth, Grantaire was forced to wonder if Enjolras's voice was the only thing about him to possess an alluring effect. Looking into his eyes, it felt just barely possible to bring his lips to form the words they needed to.

"You must know," Grantaire began, and it was enough to have Enjolras take two steps back and sit down at the edge of his bed again, "That I cannot do that. I swear I would, if there was a way for you to succeed in fleeing this place after getting past me. But there is an armed man outside, and we are far over a hundred miles into the country, away from the coast. Even if no one suspected you to be anything but human for the whole travel, you wouldn’t get further than a few miles before the Thénardiers had caught you. They have connections to shifty folks all over the country and at the moment you are their sole source of income, so I expect they would do anything in their capabilities to catch you. Which, you must know, is more than enough."

Enjolras's eyes were neither disappointed, nor sad. _And you do not trust me,_ he wrote, and held Grantaire’s gaze in a way that dared him to claim differently.

"I do not," he said, "Because if I was in your position, I would not trust myself. I would not trust that I was speaking the truth about my intentions, and even if I was, that I would keep up the resolve to help you until there was a good chance for it to work. I imagine this to be one of the first chances for flight you have been given in a long time, and I would not decide to wait and see what was going to happen instead of taking a chance now."

Enjolras remained unmoving in the unsettling way he sometimes did. Grantaire wondered if it had something to do with him being from the sea, or a predator.

He wrote,

_That is the difference between you and me, then. You expect everyone to possess the same frail sense of morality as you._

Grantaire shrugged, ignoring the way the hairs in his neck prickled from being correctly analysed in favour of taking hold of his flask again. "I suppose so," he said. "And I apologise. If it helps, my friends' sense of justice is by far greater than mine, and they would not let their resolve to think of a rescue plan slip as easily."

 _Hooray_ , Enjolras held up, his eyes not giving away any emotion.

Grantaire snorted. "Again," he said, "I apologise."

_You were saying that we are over a hundred miles away from the coast. Where exactly are we?_

"About a week's travel away from Paris, I believe," said Grantaire. "Three of our friends live there, actually. They are students of law. Jehan, you remember, the poet? He believes that we could get their help in freeing you over a legal route, which, I do not want to rob you of hope, but I don’t expect that to work. The legal system is dysfunctional to begin with, but since there is not one law even mentioning the existence of sirens, I'm puzzled as to why they could think something like this would work."

Enjolras frowned as he wrote. _The law is made to be adaptable, to serve the people. It could be changed._

Grantaire couldn’t help but roll his eyes. "No offence, but the system is rubbish, and has been for a long time. If anybody was able to change something about that, it wouldn't be two and a half students and their circus friends."

_It would not be the first time a small group like that had brought by a revolution._

"Oh, really," said Grantaire. "Who are you referring to, exactly?"

When Enjolras kept writing for quite a while, Grantaire used the time to take several swigs of his rum. When he had agreed to this position, he had definitely not been anticipating the amount of political discourse he was getting himself into.

Only then did he realise that Enjolras was making a list.

"All right, I understand," he said, but Enjolras was already standing up and shoving the paper into his face - as close as he got to his face, anyhow -, angry lines on his forehead. Grantaire didn’t bother reading the full list. "I believe you. Excuse me for being pessimistic when all these people you have listed still have failed to change enough for us to be living in a semi-decent nation. And that doesn’t even bear in mind the lost lives of those who tried and failed."

 _It is people like you,_ Enjolras had scribbled down in a much harder to read script than before, _Who are the reason that the system is still the way it is._

Grantaire shrugged. "Perhaps, but then again, I also won’t be the person to die in a pointless attempt at revolution. As you said, I will be sleeping peacefully in a back alley and awake the only one alive, mourn my idiotic dead friends, and keep suffering through life alone in this damned nation. Cheers to that."

He took another swig to prove his point.

Enjolras gripped into his curls, making Grantaire almost regret his statement if it agitated him like this. Then he wrote, quick as he could,

_Then what is the POINT? What is the point in living through the failed revolution in order to live a miserable life? How can you be so utterly incapable of believing, of dying?_

Again, Grantaire shrugged, partly because the way Enjolras's hands curled into fists made a sickly satisfying shower run down his back. Not for the first time, Grantaire was making himself ill; it shouldn’t be so strangely enjoyable to reel this creature up, he thought, and blamed it on the liquor.

He leaned forward in his seat. "How can you believe in _anything_ , considering your current position? How in all hell can you still believe in humans, Enjolras? You don’t even share their species. How can you be sure they’re not all rotten to the core, as I am sure everybody you were in contact with for the last years has been?"

This time, Enjolras did not start writing immediately. He seemed to think, let his fingers glide through his hair in a less furious gesture, attempted to push it back, behind a flushed ear. He sat back down again before he started writing.

 _I have known humans before this_ , is what he finally presented to Grantaire. _They are the same as my kind, simple as that. Neither good nor bad, but capable of doing either. It might seem strange to you that I can keep this stance, but really, it takes nothing but a bit of common sense and faith in your own knowledge to do so._

Grantaire stared at the handwriting for a bit longer than necessary, before shrugging. "No, I still can't say I understand."

The paper crumpled in between Enjolras's fingers.

Grantaire smiled, although he found no pleasure in it. "If it is your intention to convince me of humanity's goodwill, it’s no easy task you have before you, and surely not one you could complete in one day. For the sake of both of our sanities I would propose we change the subject and try to think of a way to get you away from here, safely."

Enjolras hesitated for a long moment before nodding.

They spent their day like this, comparing what they knew about each guard, their moralities and habits, the Thénardiers, all the security measures they went through for each show, hoping to find a loophole somewhere there. They kept falling back into arguments, about small nothings as well as the great questions of humanity, and Grantaire was as awed by- as he was frustrated with everything Enjolras said. He simply didn’t _understand_ him.

This time, they didn’t forget the changing of the guards until it was too late. When Grantaire remarked that evening was drawing close, Enjolras folded the stack of almost completely filled pages up and slid them over the ground.

They came to a halt just behind the line scratched into the floor, still on Enjolras's side of the room. Grantaire took them and slipped them safely back into his pocket and resumed to rant about the cursed route the circus took, not nearing the coast by less then 70 miles for a long time still, until they heard the key turn inside its lock.

It took him until hours later, when he was staring at the close ceiling above his bed, unable to sleep, to realise that Enjolras would have been able to grip Grantaire's wrist the moment he had picked up the papers. He could have clasped a hand over his mouth, used his own chain to strangle him, found a way to get out of the chain, ripped his gag off, taken the shotgun lying on the table, knocked at the door.

Enjolras had raised an eyebrow at Grantaire's ranting and gone to bed when the other guard arrived.

Well. Now, he _definitely_ wouldn't be getting any sleep.

***

"I don't understand," is what Marius said as their small group ate breakfast together the next day, sitting in the tall grass and enjoying the early morning sun before it would grow into unbearable summer heat. "What line are you talking about?"

"They have this line carved into the floorboards," said Grantaire, trying to be patient. "To assure that no one passes into the space where Enjolras can reach."

"And you passed it?" Jehan looked alarmed, yet unsurprised by Grantaire's stupidity. "R, why would you-"

"Listen, I didn't do it intentionally," said Grantaire. "You lot are blowing it out of proportion. I reached inside without thinking, for just a second, and all I'm saying is that nothing happened. Which is not to say that I would now trust him with my life, because he might not even have noticed until it was too late, but still. I thought it worth mentioning."

Cosette hummed in thought. "It’s true that it might be nothing, but it's still interesting."

"It also tells us that you aren't being careful enough," said Jehan. Him and Bahorel were sitting back to back, both glancing sideways into the round. "Really, Grantaire. If Enjolras had been quicker, or more reckless, you could be dead by now."

Grantaire focused on the straw of grass he had pulled out and was currently trying to make into a complicated knot. "Well, Enjolras might be free by now, then."

Éponine rolled her eyes with her entire body in a way Grantaire could pick up just from the corner of his eye. "You know full well that that’s not true. There’s no way he would have made it very far with two thirds of France's criminals chasing him."

Éponine had this way of talking about calling her parents criminals freely like nobody else dared, and Grantaire couldn’t decide if it amused or saddened him.

"Even if he had a chance," added Jehan, "We agreed that it's for the best to wait until we are near the coast again, correct? We will have enough troubles convincing Thénardier that we had nothing to do with Enjolras's flight, but at least he would have the chance to be long gone before too many people noticed."

Everyone nodded. "Well, when will that be?," asked Marius. "When will we be close to the sea again?"

They were silent for a moment, before Cosette spoke up. "I'm afraid," she said, "I'm afraid that won't be until we finish this tour, and return to your home town."

Éponine nodded. "We do not usually pass through coastal towns at all. My parents decided to visit yours since they know it’s a great place to find willing workers who do not ask too many questions, and I assume they will do that again in order to repeat the process, but that should be about it."

Months, Grantaire thought. About half a year. How in the hell would he manage to watch Enjolras wither away under these conditions for half a year still?

The others seemed to have similar thoughts, for no one seemed to meet each others' gazes for a while. Finally, Jehan said, "But we still have Bossuet, and Joly, and 'Chetta."

"Yes," agreed Cosette. "Yes, maybe they will be able to do something."

"I could ask Enjolras to write an appeal or something of the sort," said Grantaire, more to cheer the others up than because he believed it would do any good.

Jehan's eyes brightened up again. "That is brilliant! Have him explain the situation from his own eyes. I'm sure they could find a way to use that."

"I will ask him," said Grantaire. Cosette nudged a bottle into his hand and he drank from it deeply before drawing back and wincing.

"What is it?", asked Bahorel, possibly concerned for his wine having gone sour.

"This is water," said Grantaire.

It took Éponine a full five minutes to stop laughing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> could you imagine travelling this slowly? I was thinking 'oh shit they're only two hours by car away from the coast what if Enjolras could actually realistically make it there' but then I realised how damn far that is by foot or even by carriage like daaamn modern times are wild what even is our lives
> 
> thank you!


	8. The Way We Fight and Spit

_It's sick, the way we fight and spit_  
_Somehow we find each other even when we're trying to quit_  
_'Cause right behind our shit we like each other quite a bit_  
_But I might admit, it's pitiful the way the line was split_

\- "Whitecaps" by Watsky

* * *

For a while, Grantaire was worried that the other guards would take notice of Enjolras's changing habits. His sleeping schedule shifted to accommodate being awake to argue with Grantaire whenever he was on duty.

His worries quickly turned out to be useless, however, because none of them bothered to try and understand Enjolras's habits and actions, explaining everything they didn't understand with a shrug and a comment about strange creatures.

Grantaire was only put on guard duty a handful of times before Paris, but in those few hours him and Enjolras managed to argue over what felt like every topic in existence. When he told this to Éponine, with a laugh and headshake, she seemed more worried than amused. 

"Didn’t you say he was friendly?" she asked, the natural frown on her face.

"Oh no, he is," said Grantaire. "But he’s also hopelessly optimistic when it comes to humanity."

Éponine smirked, and said, "I thought you said he was intelligent."

And that was why they were friends.

Still, Grantaire couldn’t help but wonder why in all heavens he found so much sick pleasure in riling someone up who was already quite literally at his mercy. The answers he came up with were numerous, yet unsatisfying.

For one, Enjolras didn’t seem disinclined to their arguments. He made an effort to stay awake throughout all of Grantaire's shifts and sat with his pencil poised above paper almost the entire time, ready to counter whatever claim Grantaire would try and throw at him.

Further, although he was only too aware of the reality of their situation, it did not particularly _feel_ like Grantaire was the one with the upper hand. Was it not the truth that Enjolras was an ethereal being, unnaturally confined by the bastard Thénardier, and Grantaire was nothing but a peasant in the right place in the right moment to assist him? Wasn't he nothing but human, while Enjolras was so much more?

Still, worries about how cruel it actually was to find the pleasure he did in teasing a confined creature made Grantaire return one night to Enjolras with the resolve to avoid any kind of conversation that would feel like an abuse of power. He successfully manoeuvred around two fights with a clenched jaw until Enjolras, frowning, wrote,

_Are you suddenly taking pity on me, Grantaire? Where is your bite?_

And that was that. Minutes later, they were in the midst of a heated, yet unsurprising, debate over the potential of human society.

_You speak like this because of your limited worldview_ , wrote Enjolras. _There are nations outside of France. Other political systems, places where women receive equal education, where single rulers have been replaced by just governments._

Grantaire could only snort. "I have seen more than enough of the world to know that there isn’t a single place I would call worth living in. Other nations have different problems, not less. I have not been to one country where the common people are happier than they are here."

Enjolras looked at him strangely. _You used to go to sea, correct?_

Grantaire nodded. He wondered if something about his attire had given him away.

_I mean no offence, but what of the countries you visited did you see, exactly? Harbours and taverns, where sailors mill about. Are you sure it is not just your own people who you deem immoral, unhappy?_

Grantaire paused. He was a breath away from giving in and agreeing to this line of argument when he remembered, "You are partly right, in that what I know from those continents are the coasts and harbours. But I claim that if you can find drunks and children in ripped clothes and stick-thin prostitutes at a town's pier, it hardly matters if everyone else was so wealthy they could eat their gold."

Enjolras countered with another argument, claiming that he was not naive enough to believe in perfection. That Grantaire couldn't possibly have been to every harbour in the world.

Before that, however, he hesitated. For once, he hesitated, put pen to paper, scratched out a word, hesitated again, before he started writing.

And Grantaire counted that as a win.

Enjolras didn’t ask about his gag again, not once. Grantaire was as thankful for this as for the short distance between towns they settled close to as they neared Paris.

He didn’t know what he would have done, had he found Enjolras in a similar constitution from lack of water.

When he asked Enjolras if he could write the appeal for Bousset, Joly and Musichetta, he didn’t hesitate a second before agreeing. Enjolras immediately sat down on the floor to use the bed as a desk and wrote like he did that very first almost-letter: without pause, without hesitation, in one continuous flow of words, the pencil held delicately between those strange, webbed, long fingers.

***

Jehan had sent a letter to Paris in advance, announcing their visit, but they hadn’t dared to include any details in fear of who might get to read their letter before their friends.

The circus settled at the outskirts of the city, as always, and they met Joly, Bossuet and Musichetta in a café halfway into the capital. They had little time that day before the evening's performance, and Éponine and Bahorel had work to do, so it was Cosette, Marius, Jehan, and Grantaire that got to meet with and explain the situation to them.

It took all of them ten minutes to greet and hug each other, and proclaim their joy at being reunited.

Five minutes of Cosette being introduced by a beaming Marius to the great joy of all three of their friends, ten more minutes of pleasant conversation with her.

Half an hour of explaining the entire situation to their initially laughing, then disbelieving, then deeply invested friends.

“But is it really worth the risk?”, asked ‘Chetta.

“Isn’t he an animal? A sea creature,” said Bossuet.

They glanced at Jehan, as if this must have been their vegetarian friend’s idea of righting a wrong done to an animal held in captivity.

Fifteen more minutes of silence as ‘Chetta, Bossuet and Joly read Enjolras’s letter, all together, then again, one after the other.

(Enjolras had done a marvellous job, Grantaire thought, although he was far from a good judge of writing. The letter partly addressed them directly, partly summarised Enjolras’s captivity and situation, partly demanded, rather than pleaded, for the reader to conclude the injustice of it all. He did not write about his life beforehand, or mentioned his kind in anything but general terms, which Grantaire supposed was a necessary and understandable safety precaution to take.)

Ten minutes of silence in which no one did anything but stare at their glasses, stare at the letter, stare at their hands.

Joly was the first to speak again.

“That,” he said, “Is not an animal. That is a person.”

Tears were freely rolling down his face.

Cosette nodded, her eyes also watery. She had Marius’s hand clasped in hers.

“Sometimes, I loathe humanity,” said Bossuet.

‘Chetta folded the paper on the table in front of her, carefully slipped it back into the envelope, still silent.

“What do you think?”, asked Grantaire, preparing for the worst. “Is there anything you can do?”

Joly did not wipe his face before speaking, which Grantaire found strangely admirable. He knew he himself couldn’t stand the feeling of drying tears on his skin. “We will try, of course,” said Joly.

Musichetta kept sliding her fingers over the closed envelope, as if to strengthen the fold. She did not look up from it when she spoke. “If you ask me, the best chance you have is to break him out of there with a few rifles and a crowbar.”

Joly’s head whipped around to her, alarmed. “’Chetta!”

Bossuet put a hand on his shoulder at the same time as Musichetta took Joly’s other hand.

Bossuet said, “She’s right. Even if everything works out, if we get this letter published and people to back the cause right away, and attorneys willing to help, how long would it take until anything changed for Enjolras, personally? Four years, five. Do you think he would survive until then?”

It took Grantaire a moment to notice that everyone was looking at him. Joly repeated, “Will he?”

Grantaire took a moment longer than necessary to swallow the wine on his lips and put his glass back down.

“I,” he finally said, “Am not sure. Enjolras is, well, tougher than all of us. He can go for weeks without drink, which isn’t to say that it doesn’t affect him. He also doesn’t look particularly healthy on a good day. And there remains the face that he is, well, a fish on dry land.”

“He belongs to the sea,” said Musichetta. “Of course he does.”

Cosette was crying now as well. Marius gripped her hands tighter, or maybe she gripped his. “This,” she said, “Is so horrible. I can’t believe I agreed to work for the Thénardiers in the first place. How could I have been so blind?”

Grantaire gripped his glass a bit tighter. _You don’t have to watch him every day_ , he thought. _You don’t even know what it’s like for him._

Jehan nodded. “It’s hard to sleep at night knowing all of this, and not be able to do anything at the moment, isn’t it?”

Grantaire emptied the rest of his glass, hoping to swallow down the bitterness of his thoughts with it. _Neither do you_ , he thought to himself. _You’re the worst of them all. You don’t know what it’s like, but you can guess, you can see, and you’re still not doing anything._

An hour of discussion that Grantaire followed silently, conversing with no one but the bottle before him. It all lead to the same point where they’d started: ‘Chetta, Joly and Bossuet would try and see what they could do, if only it would change misconceptions over sirens in some people’s minds.

Realistically, though, their plan to find a way to free Enjolras forcefully once they neared the sea again was back at the forefront.

At some point, Bossuet leaned over to Grantaire next to him, and said, “You’re worrying me, Grantaire. You haven’t tried to argue any of Marius’s _grant_ ideas since we've been sitting here.”

Grantaire attempted a grin. “Cosette is a good influence on him, isn’t she? He talks decidedly less nonsense nowadays.”

Bossuet’s eyes stayed on his, watching, for a few more seconds before he let it go. Grantaire breathed deeply.

Half an hour of needing to go, another bottle, really needing to go, another hug, being sure that they would arrive late, more hugging, and a final goodbye.

The three of them declined visiting the show not only for obvious reasons, but also to avoid having their faces known by Thénardier before they would go and try to destroy his existence.

Grantaire was used to leaving his friends, though, and this time, there was even a chance they would meet again before the full year was over.

Given that they would all survive to see that day.

It was still hard to stay optimistic when the dread of his expectations having come true was heavy on his shoulders. There was nothing they could do, no easy way to go.

This whole endeavour would have been decidedly easier if Grantaire'd had any talent for leadership in him. For planning.

Suddenly and violently, Grantaire longed for Enjolras to join them at their table. He wouldn’t have given up this easily. He wouldn’t have let Grantaire’s dark predictions, no matter how realistic, keep him from expecting their plan to work. He would shout at him, maybe, and Grantaire could shout back, fight against his awful optimism only to find it secure and standing still as a brick wall.

He missed that security, now. He thought back to a time when he’d been annoyed at how often he had to bring his naïve friends’ ideas back down to earth, but maybe it had never been their ideas that he found hard to stand. It was their lack of holding up against Grantaire’s prodding, his realism.

Enjolras, on the other hand.

Grantaire hated and admired and loved and venerated Enjolras for his ridiculous beliefs. He wouldn't make less of a cynic out of Grantaire, far from it. But just the knowledge that a radiant man like him, someone so beautiful and pure, could stand there in shackles, look Grantaire in the eyes and tell him that he was wrong; the fact that no matter what Grantaire knew to be true, he also knew that Enjolras would never give up on his version of reality; it was not quite enough to let Grantaire sleep peacefully, but obviously enough to have him crave Enjolras’s presence.

They finally parted ways, and Grantaire tried not to loathe his friends for the hopelessness he saw on each of their faces. He tried to love them for their compassion instead, for their true grief. It was hard, today. Not impossible, but hard.

Grantaire drank himself to sleep that evening while the show was still taking place - ignoring how the faintest of traces of Enjolras’s voice in the air tugged at him to go go _go_ , ignoring the imminent dread of having to tell him the disappointing news in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> listen... I fucking love Chetta and her boyfriends do you hear me. I'm so sorry I can't do them justice in this story because it's not the place for it but just know I have their whole lives in Paris mapped out in my head and they're happy and love each other and have a lot of friends and a cat and Bossuet doesn't get thrown out of uni in this AU because Marius isn't around.
> 
> thank you!


	9. I Just Settled into the Glass Half Empty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> see the end notes for chapter-specific content warnings!
> 
> to my general defence, parts of this chapter were written at around 4 am at a writing event hosted by my university on stolen sticky notes, two coffees in and with my anxiety cranked up too high, so. that could explain some stuff
> 
> in case you've noticed: I changed the total chapter count from 13 to 15, which will probably be accurate. the intended total word count will be around 45k-50k
> 
> also, I've changed the rating from explicit to mature because I've realised it's more fitting for what's to come!
> 
> <3

_Oh no not now_  
_Please not now_  
_I just settled into the glass half empty_  
_Made myself at home_  
_And so why now_  
_Please not now_  
_I just stopped believing in happy endings_  
_Harbors of my own_

\- "Stray Italian Greyhound" by Vienna Teng

* * *

Grantaire’s eyelids were heavy and his temples pulsing when he told Enjolras how little hope 'Chetta and Joly and Bossuet had.

And Enjolras, beautiful, more-than-human Enjolras with the never-ending energy and endless hope, gave nothing but a nod in response.

Grantaire wanted to punch something.

Someone.

It was _his_ job to be the pessimist. Enjolras was supposed to be passionate about things, optimistic to the point where Grantaire was inclined to call him naive, hopeful. What did it mean for their chances of succeeding when not even Enjolras had dared to hope?

He just nodded, and Grantaire was rendered speechless for a long moment. At Enjolras’s cocked brow he forced himself to relay the rest of their meeting, and the topic was dropped.

The only thing that really changed after Paris was that Grantaire stopped bringing drinks with him. It was hard to enjoy them with the biting knowledge in the back of his mind that he was flaunting his freedom before a creature of the sea banned to land. If it increased his drinking outside of his work hours dramatically, then well. Grantaire would find a way to live with himself, as he always did.

Paris was one of the few places that the Thénardiers risked visiting every year, in contrary to the rest of their tour, the course of which they made an effort to alter slightly. As Éponine had explained to Grantaire that first evening months ago, they'd had problems with people following their train and becoming increasingly insane with the Siren's Song, which happened especially often when someone saw them year after year. The only reason they kept risking returning to Paris was, according to Éponine, that Thénardier refused to pass by the huge income they made with ticket sales near the capital.

Grantaire was not surprised.

Everything seemed to go well, though, for the entire month since they had left Paris in the middle of the night. Or as well as it could go considering their general situation. Grantaire did his work, received his pay, Marius and Cosette were disgustingly in love, as were Jehan and Bahorel, although they flaunted it less openly. It was to no one's surprise, the least his own, that Grantaire and Éponine spent an ever-increasing amount of time drinking together.

When Grantaire woke up one day, or rather one evening, it took him minutes to make out what exactly it was that felt different from before. Only a glance at his pocket watch telling him it was mere minutes before his evening shift would start made him realise; he was absolutely dreading his work.

Of course, their conversations had always been exhausting, and annoying, and infuriating, but at the same time, Grantaire had to admit that he found consolation in the knowledge that no matter how grim he knew the world to be, there was Enjolras, who had seen the horrible things Grantaire had, if not worse, and still refused to give in to cynicism.

So, when Grantaire got up and ready for work, it took him a full minute to figure out what had changed that gave his mouth a sour taste at the prospect of hours of discussion with Enjolras. He had already emptied the little remains of the rum him and Éponine had shared that morning when he recognised the sheer exhaustion sitting deep in his bones.

Grantaire was _tired_ of watching Enjolras like this nearly every day. He was absolutely exhausted of laughing at the jokes the other guards made, of pretending not to care, of pretending not to know the injustice of it all. Of being nothing but an assistant to Thénardier's sick game.

Weeks ago, he used to see Thénardier and need to clench his fist as not to connect it to his face. Now, he simply watched him walk past as he made his way to Enjolras's prison cell, feeling nothing but a deep pit of emptiness in his gut.

He made a detour to Bahorel’s liquor wagon, stole a bottle of wine and downed nearly half of it before he had to throw it into the bushes they were travelling past and start his shift.

When the door fell closed behind him and was locked, Grantaire thought he saw something akin to relieve light up in Enjolras's eyes at seeing him, and didn’t that make everything so much worse? What right did he have to earn an expression like that when at the same time, he was being paid good money to keep Enjolras caged?

 _Good evening_ , Enjolras wrote on the paper Grantaire gave him. _Pardon my bluntness, but you look like you slept in a tavern._

Grantaire snorted. "Close enough," he said. "Isn’t every place where you drink yourself to sleep a sort of tavern?"

Enjolras seemed unsure what to do with his bluntness for a moment. _Are you quite all right?_

And wasn't that just ironic? Being asked by Enjolras if _he_ was doing alright. Grantaire held back from pointing this out, knowing that it would cause nothing but another fight about Enjolras refusing to be pitied, but a bitter laugh still made it out of his mouth.

"Splendid," said Grantaire, unable to hide the sarcasm in his words. "Spare your worries, I refuse to bore you with my futile problems."

 _Grantaire,_ Enjolras wrote. _I am bored out of my mind, have been so for years. I would be interested in hearing you count out loud the number of stitches used to make your trousers._

So Grantaire sighed, and told Enjolras about his thoughts about Éponine and her love for her sister, who still refused to hate their parents. It wasn’t the biggest worry on Grantaire's mind, but it was prominent enough that he didn’t have to feign his concern.

At some point, Enjolras closed his eyes while listening, lying back. It took Grantaire another while to realise he had fallen asleep, but he was glad when he did.

As to keep himself from giving in to his own exhaustion - not for concern of what Enjolras would do, but for being found passed out at his post - Grantaire settled down at the desk and began to draw with one of his spare pencils.

He hadn’t needed to pass the time like this in a while, which was what Grantaire used to blame his inability to produce anything worthwhile on. He refused to acknowledge that it had anything to do with how his fingers curled around the pencil kept trying to form curls upon curls on the page instead of what Grantaire's brain told it to.

Despite his best efforts, Grantaire had almost nodded off by the time he heard the shouts outside. The wagon's thickly isolated walls made it impossible to make out any words, but there was a panic to them that got Grantaire to his feet.

"Enjolras," he said, and after a moment when the other didn't stir, " _Enjolras._ "

When he awoke, he did so fully in the manner of a second, standing up and alert.

"The papers," said Grantaire, and the other understood immediately. Grantaire stopped them in their slide with his foot and stuffed them into his pocket before knocking on the door, twice.

Seconds passed without reaction.

He knocked again, twice.

Nothing.

Grantaire knocked three times, knowing full well that no one was going to answer as the shouting grew more urgent.

"What on earth," said Grantaire, looking back at a frowning Enjolras. "Has anything like this happened before?"

Enjolras shook his head.

"Any idea what could be going on?"

Enjolras shook his head.

For just a moment, the idea of this being the perfect distraction for Enjolras to catch his flight crossed Grantaire's mind, before he caught up with reality. From the very beginning, their problem had not been escaping this carriage, but what came after. Anyhow, there was no way for them to open the door.

They both stood and listened as the voices grew more distant.

Long minutes of near-silence passed until they finally heard a key turning inside the lock. Grantaire wanted to sigh in relief.

But when the door swung open, the person on the other side wasn't one of the guards. Grantaire had never in his life moved as fast as in the fraction of a second it took him to realise that the man with the rifle was a stranger and throw himself against the door with all his weight.

Grantaire managed to press it shut completely, but he realised quickly he wouldn’t be able to keep it closed for long.

"Take that _thing_ off," he told Enjolras, who was still standing in the middle of the room, looking ready for a fight rather than alarmed. "Hurry!", he added unnecessarily.

It took Enjolras four shoves to the door behind Grantaire's back to loosen enough knots to shove it down and around his neck.

Enjolras took one deep breath.

"Cover your ears," he said.

The next shove sent Grantaire to the floor, the door flying open behind him. He heard the sound of the shotgun loading before he'd pressed his hands over his ears.

Grantaire noted numbly that he was way past that cursed line when he looked up and found himself on the floor even behind where Enjolras was standing.

Before Grantaire’s brain had had enough time to be alarmed at the prospect of being shot any second, the stranger had lowered his rifle. He was staring at Enjolras with a shocked expression, pupils blown wide. Apart from his gaze, so openly adoring and awake that Grantaire could barely stand looking at it, the man looked absolutely ordinary - worker's clothes, barely over thirty. Possibly a blacksmith, or a carpenter.

Grantaire looked up at Enjolras and pressed his hands a bit harder over his ears when he saw that his lips were moving. It didn't look like he was singing, but he was forming words, and Grantaire's hands mustn't have been enough to block out all the sound, because for a long moment, he physically couldn't bring himself to look away. It had been a long time since Grantaire had even seen the lower half of Enjolras's face. He must have convinced himself that his early judgement of its beauty had been hasty, because he was blown-away anew.

When he did manage to avert his gaze, the stranger had started crying. He looked to be in physical pain as he turned around to leave through the still-open door, until Enjolras seemed to say something to hold him back. The man turned one more time to take a key out of his pocket and drop it on the floor. Then he left, gun in hand, and closed the door behind him.

Grantaire breathed against the dizziness as he stared at the closed door, his hands dropping into his lap. He noted dumbly that he was still sitting on the floor. He got up on wobbly knees.

Before he could so much as look at him, Enjolras was pushing him into the wall with a flat hand on Grantaire's chest.

Grantaire didn't dare flinch as the other's hair tickled his face and neck. Enjolras buried his nose into the curls just behind Grantaire’s ear and breathed in deeply. He sucked the air in as if he had nearly drowned and was finally breaking through the surface.

Enjolras's weight was gone as fast as it had come as he pushed himself away from Grantaire again, taking two long steps back. He folded his hands behind his back, the perfect posture of a soldier, and didn't meet his gaze when he said, "Apologies."

"Uh," said Grantaire. The rational part of his brain was telling him to get to his half of the room again, to get distance between him and Enjolras, to run away if possible. But that part was buried deeply under alcohol, adrenaline and exhaustion, and the only thing Grantaire could think to say was, "You can speak?"

Enjolras's eyes were on him again instantly, and Grantaire noted that his usual annoyed raise of one eyebrow was even more effective when it was paired with his lips pressed together unhappily like now. "Of course I can _speak_ ," he said.

"I mean," said Grantaire, "I mean, without your," he gesticulated in a way that he hoped would convey the right meaning, "Thing. Effect."

Enjolras blinked. "Oh," he said. "Of course. I thought you knew as much."

Grantaire wondered if he should have known. Maybe he should. Probably he should.

"I have to," said Enjolras, and breathed, "I have to apologise again, for startling you like that. It's just- your _smell_."

Enjolras looked genuinely unhappy, and a strange mixture of feelings coursed through Grantaire's body. Rubbing at the goosebumps on one arm, he wondered if he should be feeling insulted.

"My-"

"You still have the smell of the ocean attached to you," said Enjolras. "At least, I can still smell it. It's- it was overpowering when I first met you. I assumed you were placed here simply to mock me."

"Oh," said Grantaire stupidly. "I'm not- no. I don't think Thénardier would be that smart. I'm deeply sorry for causing you unnecessary pain."

Enjolras shook his head. His hands were still behind his back, and without the gag, without his strangely beautiful webbed fingers in sight, he looked so human, so young, that it made Grantaire's chest constrict painfully. Grantaire concentrated his eyes on Enjolras's neck, the scales there, to keep himself from going insane completely.

"Don't apologise if you didn't even know. It was only painful because of how much I enjoyed it. I- we do not usually pass by the ocean, and when we do, I can only hear and smell it for a few days at a time. The way it’s clinging to you, it's a nice reminder of what is waiting for me when I get out."

 _When_ , Grantaire thought. _When, not if_. He closed his eyes for a moment, not ready to feel the suffocating weight of Enjolras's hope while looking into his eyes.

Grantaire pushed a hand through his hair, and another, before he opened his eyes to find Enjolras unmoved. "We need a God damned plan to get you out of here," he said. "Something specific we can work towards instead of sitting around hoping for a miracle from a bunch of disorganised law students in Paris."

Enjolras smiled, small and determined, and Grantaire almost made an embarrassing sound at the realisation that yes, it was very possible for Enjolras to become even more attractive than he already was. Again, Grantaire wondered if he was under Enjolras’s spell from earlier.

"Finally," he said, "A great idea, and coming from you. If I may suggest, though, to lock the door and pocket your newly acquired key, in case somebody comes to explain the situation."

"Right," said Grantaire, catching up with the situation again. "Right. Okay."

He did as suggested, although it felt strangely depressing to return to his usual place in the room. When Grantaire turned again, Enjolras had removed his mask completely, staring down at it in his hands with disgust.

"Since we're currently exchanging apologies," said Grantaire, "Forgive me for not letting you remove that thing before. Believe me that it wasn’t for a lack of trust in you, but for a lack of trust in the faith people usually have in me."

Enjolras looked at him silently, his gaze speaking neither of sympathy, nor of anger. Finally, he looked down again, said, "Here we go again," and tied it back around his face.

"Just until we figure out what went on outside," Grantaire hurried to say. "Until we can be sure no one will come in for a few hours."

Enjolras sighed through his nose, because of course, he knew as much.

"I will bring you water tomorrow," said Grantaire. God, he wanted to do something, _anything_. He wanted to actually, finally, help. He was so desperate to lessen any of his sufferings, to see Enjolras smile at him again. "And food, whatever you like, whatever I can obtain and carry with me. Liquor, if you are interested."

A slight roll of his eyes showed Grantaire that he was very much not interested in the offer of liquor, but his eyes still somewhat lightened up at his words.

The shouts outside hadn't yet returned, and Grantaire didn't know if they had gone silent or too far away to be heard. He sat on his desk, Enjolras sat on the floor against the wall, and they awaited what would happen, not daring to correspond per paper while they did. Grantaire was positive that nobody would be able to tell anything had happened since the inside of the wagon was unchanged, but he feared there would be evidence of violence on the door outside.

Twenty tortuously slow minutes passed until they heard footsteps on the wood outside, and then a key turned in the lock. Grantaire had a moment of cruel déjà vu when somebody entered with their shotgun held in front of them, but he quickly recognised the guard from the morning.

"Grantaire," he said too loudly before he opened one of his ears. "Did anything happen in here?"

Grantaire looked at the open door and found it unchanged. "No," he said. "Apart from me being left to my own devices here. What in all heavens is going on?"

The guard shook his head. "We have no idea. Well, we do, but it's nonsensical. They were putting up the tent when it was set on fire by something. Someone, maybe. They needed all men available to get it under control, but in the end, there isn’t much damage."

"'Someone'?", Grantaire echoed.

"Well," said the guard, "Thénardier's daughter, the young one, she found a strange man in the woods with a bullet in the head. His own making, it seems. People are speculating it was him who set the fire, but personally, I don't understand what his intentions might have been. Well, Montparnasse is convinced that he might have been one of those lovesick ones, you know. The insane ones that used to follow us. He sent me back as quickly as possible, but it seems that his worries were for nought."

Grantaire shrugged. "Life doesn’t always make sense."

The guard scratched his temple with his rifle's barrel, and Grantaire almost laughed out loud. "I suppose not. Well, I'll be on post again, if you need anything. Still an hour or so left until morning. I'll come in and tell you of any news about the fire when I obtain them."

"That is very kind of you," said Grantaire to the man closing the door behind himself, as if he was not internally cursing him for making his disturbances impossible to anticipate.

When Grantaire turned back to Enjolras, the other had his eyes closed, eyebrows knit closely together with his frown. His hands were curled to fists against the floor.

“Enjolras,” said Grantaire. “I dearly hope you’re not blaming yourself for anything that man did to himself.”

It didn't even make sense. Didn't sirens kill humans to survive? Grantaire hadn't before wondered about what they gave Enjolras to eat, and now that he did, he tried to push the thought away as far as possible.

Enjolras didn’t open his eyes. He breathed in deeply through his nose, held it, and breathed out. He finally shook his head and pulled his knees against his chest, holding them with both arms.

They didn’t talk for the last minutes until sunrise. Grantaire didn’t dare do anything they couldn't get caught doing, and with only Grantaire able to talk, there was little appeal in it. The only thing it would have been good for was to rile Enjolras up until the tips of his ears were red, which Grantaire had never felt less inclined to do with Enjolras remaining on the floor, unmoving.

Instead, Grantaire attempted and failed at keeping his brain from repeating what had happened before again and again and again until he was sure he would never forget any of it.

Enjolras's hand on his chest, his body so close Grantaire could feel it hover just before him all along his own, his beautiful hair, his chest leaning into him, his face pressed into his neck, the cold rush of air being sucked in right at the sensitive spot.

Grantaire loathed his mind for how much it had enjoyed the short touch that spoke of Enjolras's misery rather than affection, how he had not felt scared, not truly, for even a fraction of it. Jehan had once accused him of having no sense of self-preservation, and Grantaire had never had less reason to doubt this judgement.

"Until tomorrow, Enjolras," said Grantaire, right when he heard the key inside the lock. "I look forward to finally arguing with you properly.”

Enjolras opened his eyes, and watched Grantaire leave the carriage for the day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW in this chapter for implied/referenced suicide of a VERY minor character!
> 
> writing this fic really made me grateful for the little things. this chapter made me go all cry emoji over FINALLY being able to have Enjolras talk. how I even thought I would be able to pull off a fic where Enjolras (ENJOLRAS) isn't able to talk for a good portion is beyond me
> 
> small disclaimer: we have now reached the point where I haven't written all of the remaining chapters yet, but if all goes as planned I'll keep updating every Sunday. I am, however, leaving the country at the end of the month (erasmus, yeehaw. I'm terrified. Has anyone been to Nottingham? is it nice there?), so we'll see what happens.
> 
> thank you!


	10. But Usually, I’m Just Trying to Get Some Sleep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LISTEN. I JUST REALIZED THAT I'M A FAKE FAN AND THE LYRICS IN THE TITLE ARE WRONG. I'm laughing at myself but also ahdjflgl
> 
> Apparently, it's just "Drain the Whole Sea". To my defense though, I feel like Andrew tends to swallow some words and the cover version I listen to a lot does use "TO drain the whole sea".
> 
> But it's too late to change it now. I'm exposed. Overcome with shame. A traitor of the community. A Fake Fan-
> 
> Anyway, have fun with the new chapter

_There are some nights I wait for someone to save us_  
_But I never look inward, try not to look upward_  
_And some nights I pray a sign is gonna come to me_  
_But usually, I’m just trying to get some sleep_

\- “Some Nights (Intro)” by fun.

* * *

It was an agonising 12 hours until Grantaire’s next shift. He spent them trying, or rather pretending, to sleep in order to avoid his friends.

He didn’t know why he did it, exactly. Grantaire simply found himself entirely unable to tell any of them about what had happened.

He didn’t feel like he’d done anything wrong, exactly. Éponine might have scolded him for his blind trust that might as well have gotten him killed, but since Grantaire was alive and well, he felt like she wouldn’t have much to go on.

Maybe it was because he’d been affected by Enjolras’s song, after all. It would explain why he’d been unable to stop shaking even hours after leaving the carriage.

The entire incident just felt too intimate, somehow - like if he told Jehan about it, he would give him a knowing look about something Grantaire didn’t yet understand himself. It felt disrespectful, too, towards Enjolras to go running to his friends before they’d even had the chance to discuss what had happened.

That evening, Grantaire didn’t even wait until the key had stopped turning inside the door behind him to pull out the bottle he’d brought inside his jacket.

Enjolras stood up from his place sitting on the floor. He leaned against the wall behind him and watched Grantaire, not making another move.

“Don’t start being coy now,” said Grantaire. “I didn’t even bring paper. Take that thing off.”

He did, albeit with a raised eyebrow. Grantaire tried not to stare. He didn’t think he would ever get enough of being able to see Enjolras’s entire stupidly stunning face.

“I don’t think I’ve been once called ‘coy’ in my entire life,” said Enjolras.

Not for the first time, Grantaire wondered how long said life had been, so far. He’d guessed Enjolras to be in his late adolescence way back when he’d seen him for the first time, but the more they communicated, the higher his age climbed in Grantaire’s head. Twenty-one, maybe? Then again, would a siren’s aging process work the same as that of a human?

“Here,” said Grantaire, throwing the bottle across the room.

Enjolras caught it with ease but looked immediately ready to throw it back. “In contrary to you,” he said, “I don’t much care for putting poison inside my body.”

“Christ, it’s water,” said Grantaire. “Why does everyone act so surprised when I carry water?”

“I think you might best answer this question yourself,” said Enjolras, and tipped his head back as he swallowed deeply from the bottle.

The day before, Grantaire hadn’t had much time to think about it, but Enjolras’s voice was- well, not what he’d expected. Although, he hadn’t expected much since all Grantaire had ever heard of it before were traces of something in the air that didn’t quite feel like hearing. More like feeling. Sensing. Maybe that’s what he’d expected: Enjolras’s voice being of no physical existence.

But there it was: a clear, pleasant voice that seemingly possessed no more magic than the impact of words it knew only too well to use, if Enjolras’s writing was anything to go by.

Grantaire leaned against his table as Enjolras emptied half of the bottle. While he didn’t feel any fear to cross over to the other side of the carriage anymore, despite what Jehan might have advised him, it would have felt like trespassing a boundary, passing into private property. Enjolras didn’t possess much at this point in time, in physical terms at least, and the least Grantaire could do was to respect his space until he was invited.

“I would have brought something to eat as well, but honestly, I wasn’t sure what it is that you eat, exactly.”

Enjolras put the bottle down onto his bed. “What do you think?”, he said. His expression was entirely emotionless.

“What I think is that I no longer trust what I’ve been told,” answered Grantaire. “Which is why I’m asking you to enlighten me.”

Enjolras looked at him for a moment longer before breaking the gaze. “Anything you would eat,” he said. “Though I can go longer without.”

“Oh, thank God,” said Grantaire. “Not to be insensible, but I’ve been suppressing thoughts of what the Thénardiers were giving you for months. The stories told about your kind can be quite explicit on your eating habits.”

Enjolras still didn’t meet his eye, which was a first. “I’m quite aware,” he said. “It’s what the Thénardiers used to believe as well.”

Grantaire nodded. Then, his brain kicked in.

“Are you saying-”

“I don’t actually want to talk about it,” said Enjolras, looking up again, “If you don’t mind.”

Oh, but did he mind. Not only did Grantaire’s stomach have a hard time coming to terms with the very real possibility of humans having been slaughtered for this circus, but also-

“I wouldn’t mind,” he said, “I truly wouldn’t, but- couldn’t that be an angle to ruin the Thénardiers from? If they have truly killed before, maybe there could be a way to prove it? We might be able to-”

“No,” said Enjolras, shaking his head once, vehemently. “There is no way to prove anything. Too much time has passed. Trust me that I spent enough time pondering this already, back before Paris, to know that there is no point.”

Grantaire opened his mouth to protest. Then he remembered Bahorel, the way he’d said ‘if you say so’ to Jehan and meant it.

“If you say so,” said Grantaire.

It sounded insincere even to his own ears.

“I do,” said Enjolras, and sat down on his bed. Again, he looked young and tired and human, bent slightly over himself on the edge of a mattress after a long day. It only took him a moment to straighten his back and prove to Grantaire that even if he seemed exhausted, he was far from giving in.

He looked up at Grantaire with those eyes - still tired, but somehow also ancient, awake, furious. “I can’t stop thinking about that man who took his life. I see his face whenever I try to sleep.”

For a moment, Grantaire simply gaped at Enjolras’s sincerity.

He caught himself and said, “It’s not your fault,” because it was the truth.

“I know,” said Enjolras, almost irritated. “It’s Thénardier’s fault. But it shouldn’t have happened. And it shows us that we have a responsibility to act as fast as we can to end this circus.”

Grantaire thought that Enjolras’s life was reason enough to free him, but he suspected it would earn him a lecture on egoism if he were to voice this.

Choosing his words carefully for once, Grantaire said, “The first step is to get you out of this hole, though, isn’t it? There is only so much we can do from inside here, when everything we go to the public with will inevitably be traced back to us.”

“Obviously,” said Enjolras. “Although there isn’t much we can do until we’re back near the town you and your group came from.”

“It can’t be more than two months until we return, probably less,” said Grantaire, although Enjolras must have been aware. If he had counted the days even nearly as rigorously as Grantaire, that was.

It didn’t put Grantaire at ease, exactly, that they were travelling towards the heart of the country for a while before finally setting course towards the coast. But there wasn’t much he could do.

Enjolras stood up and started pacing around the room, his hands clasped behind his back, the chain dragging behind him no apparent distraction.

“So, here’s what we will do,” he said, and Grantaire almost wanted to sigh in relief. Finally, Enjolras could do what he was meant to and lead their mess of a group. With him to tell everyone what to do, there was a chance that their plan would actually work.

It frightened Grantaire senseless.

“We have several advantages: the newly obtained key to the carriage, your friends, and yourself. The only physical hindrances will be whoever is guarding the outside door as well as this cursed chain,” he stomped with his foot against the floor to prove his point, “Of which the latter will be the lesser evil. All we will need in order to get it off the floorboards will be some kind of strong piece of metal to use for leverage.

“At least one of the guards has proven himself to be distracted easily by means of a fire, or someone screaming about one. So, violence won’t even be necessary if we act smartly. Once I’m outside, it will only be a matter of minutes before I reach the ocean, by which point the Thénardiers’ network will be of little use for them.”

Enjolras stopped in the middle of the room, and looked at Grantaire.

“So, regarding all of this, I believe our most pressing problem will be to make sure you and your friends won’t run into any problems once they notice I’m gone. You could flee with me, but I fear there isn’t an easy way out for you as there is for me.”

“Why not?”, asked Grantaire. “All I have to do is board the next ship I see. Thénardier might have some affiliates, but even he doesn’t have his eyes all over the world.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Enjolras, frowning in distaste. “Why would you make things harder for yourself than they already are? You wouldn’t be able to return to this country, to your friends, for years.”

“It’s not like I’ll be banned for ever,” said Grantaire. “I’ll cut my hair, dress in tailored suits. Nobody would ever recognise me.”

“I repeat,” said Enjolras, “Why do you insist on making things harder on yourself than they are? We simply have to sell them the story that you tried to stop me and failed. You will tell them you were glad you got out alive, they will think you stupid and lucky.”

“I’m hurt you think me bad enough at my job that something like that would be believable,” said Grantaire.

Enjolras’s mouth quirked up on one side in a rare show of amusement at Grantaire’s words. “Would you call this being good at your job, then?”, he asked.

“I think I’m being marvellous at a job, just not the one I’m being paid for,” said Grantaire. “Quite irregularly, I might add. For some reason I have a hard time feeling too bad about being a bad employee.”

“Fair enough,” said Enjolras. “And anyway, you could simply get drunk enough that nobody would bat an eyelash that I managed to get past you.”

Grantaire smirked. “See, I knew my ‘nasty habit’ would be good for something, in the end.”

Enjolras, unsurprisingly, looked far from amused. He ignored the comment. “The only thing I’m not sure about yet is how we will best create a distraction for the guard outside,” he said. “It is the only part we need your friends’ active help in, which means that all in all it will be relatively easy to keep them out of the Thénardiers’ suspicions. But it means we can’t just have one of them screaming about a fire that doesn’t exist.”

“A real fire, then,” said Grantaire. “I feel like Éponine would take more than a little pleasure in burning down her parents’ business, if only a little bit.”

“As long as she doesn’t get caught,” said Enjolras, “It would work. Although it might be a bit strange if something like that happened twice in the span of a few months.”

“Oh, I don’t think so. Marius knocks over various lanterns at least once a week. It is a miracle that we _haven’t_ burned to the ground yet, really.”

“That,” said Enjolras, “Is alarming. But good for us. We just need him to do it again, then, and wait a minute or two until the fire is big enough to warrant a commotion about it.”

Grantaire nodded. “Though I wonder, what will happen if someone finds Marius and puts out the fire? Or when the guard simply stays where he is.”

“Then we will find another way,” said Enjolras. “Either I send him away and hope he won’t react as badly as the last one, and that he doesn’t come back once the Song wears off to tell the Thénardiers of your passivity. Or we choose the safer variety - safer for you, that is - and kill him.”

Grantaire blinked. “Call me cold-blooded, but I feel like that would be the better option than having Marius literally commit arson and hoping it will make people look the other way for a minute.”

“Well, call me naive, but I would prefer trying other options before ending a person’s life,” said Enjolras.

Again, Grantaire had to bite back questions on a siren’s eating habits. He only managed to do so only because Enjolras’s expression seemed to dare him to say anything stupid.

So instead, Grantaire just said, “Touché.”

And that was that.

All in all, Grantaire had been a fool to think that Enjolras could be any less agile with his words when he was able to speak them aloud. It was quite the contrary: without pencil and paper to slow him down, Enjolras was, unbelievably, even more quick-witted, even more passionate, even more self-assured and honest.

Grantaire was a mere man listening to a messiah, still. And he couldn’t stop trying to poke holes into his logic, test his arguments' strength. It was dumb, and wonderful, and sent guilty waves of pleasure through all his limbs to watch Enjolras get worked up as he tried to move past them.

As the sun began to set and the danger of getting disturbed grew too big, Enjolras put his mask back on without as much as a sign of displeasure. It didn’t help with the way Grantaire’s stomach twisted at the sight. He reminded Enjolras of the bottle that was still lying on his bed, empty, and stepped over to his side of the wagon as he handed it back. Enjolras looked at him strangely as he did so. Grantaire was careful not to let their hands touch and stepped back to his desk.

It was hard to only see half of Enjolras’s face again, now that he’d gotten used to seeing all of it. It had only served to remind him of how unnatural, how cruel this situation still was. Then, he wanted to hit himself over the head for feeling sorry for himself when he was clearly in the better position here, and the cycle continued.

The door opened more than half an hour later. Grantaire tried, and failed, not to feel guilty that this was one of the first times in quite a while he was glad to see his shift ending. When he saw that Montparnasse was the one to step inside after him, grumbling at being stuck with this kind of work once again, he had to physically hold himself back from saying something incredibly stupid.

Grantaire made a note to ask Enjolras at the next possible time if Montparnasse was as hard to bear for him as he was for everyone else, and left without a glance backwards.

***

Grantaire managed to put it off for a whole week until he finally found the courage to tell Éponine about what had happened with the intruder.

“You what.”

“It’s not like I had a choice, if you think about it.”

“’It’s not like-’” Éponine sighed in a display of her utter frustration with Grantaire, taking a break from filling the horses’ troughs. “I can’t believe this. How are you still alive with these kind of decision-making skills? Honestly.”

Grantaire shrugged. Honestly, he didn’t know. “Well, nothing happened, correct?”

“A man has killed himself, Grantaire.”

“His death is hardly _my_ fault.”

“No, but Enjolras isn’t quite innocent, is he?”

Grantaire frowned. “That was pure self-defence. And he didn’t tell that man to kill himself, either.”

“You don’t know that,” said Éponine. “You didn’t listen to him, did you? Or you would be dead by now, too.”

Grantaire chose to walk away by this point.

He found Jehan, Marius and Cosette sitting in the shade of one of the wagons around a single stool, playing cards on it. Marius seemed to be winning, which none of the others looked willing to accept.

“I think I ought to tell you about something,” said Grantaire, and did, if only so that Éponine wouldn’t give them her view of things before Grantaire would be able to.

For a moment, Jehan and Cosette just stared at him. Marius seemed still more preoccupied with the game than his friend’s bad life decisions, which calmed Grantaire a bit.

Finally, Jehan said, “Grantaire. Were you drunk?”

Well, yes, but that was beside the point, he thought. He said, “Éponine thinks me insane, too. What was I supposed to do?”

“Well, didn’t you have a gun?”, asked Cosette.

Grantaire blinked. He would never admit to it, but he hadn’t spared it a thought until this very moment. “I did, but how would that have helped? I didn’t have time to reach it, and you didn’t see the man. Being shot wouldn’t have stopped him.” Grantaire noticed Cosette’s expression. “I’m speaking the truth. He was in this state of trance, I’ve never seen anything like it. And surprisingly, I don’t particularly seek to ever kill anyone.”

Jehan opened his mouth, but Grantaire had already guessed his words.

“I know he’s dead either way,” he said. “But I wouldn’t have known, had I killed him. And apart from that, everything turned out perfectly, didn’t it? Enjolras and I can actually discuss things affectively now.”

Marius looked up from his cards. He was the only one still holding onto them, as if he wasn’t quite ready to give up from his winning round. “Wait,” he said. “You talk to him now? Are you insane?”

Grantaire threw his hands up, but refused to stand and leave again, knowing his friends would just discuss his stupidity without him there to defend himself.

“Could you lot have an ounce of faith in me knowing what I’m doing for once? Yes, we’re talking, and I’m obviously still alive. I can’t believe none of you trust Enjolras at all.”

“It’s not that we don’t trust him,” said Cosette, “But that we can’t predict what he’ll do. He’s been in here for so long, it would be a wonder if he wasn’t at least somewhat hostile towards us all.”

“What we’re saying,” said Jehan, “Is that it wouldn’t be surprising if he didn’t trust us.”

“Which is why I kept him literally gagged,” said Grantaire, equally furious at himself as at his friends, “Until this stupid accident happened, which proved that I won’t immediately get killed once I let Enjolras speak. Don’t you think I would be dead by now if he wanted to kill me?”

“That’s a very reckless way of going about things,” said Jehan.

“What is?”, asked Bahorel, who came walking around the carriage and proved to all of them that they ought to be more careful with where they talked about confidential matters like this.

With a disappointed frown, Marius put his cards down onto the stool between them as Bahorel settled down beside Jehan, finally giving up on their game.

To Bahorel’s question, Marius answered with a near-pout, “Grantaire has a death wish and talks to the siren now.”

“Jesus Christ,” said Grantaire. “He has a name, and you’re telling half-truths. In a moment of emergency, I let him take his mask off, and everything has been just fine for a week now.”

“How would you know, though?”, asked Jehan. “You wouldn’t be able to tell if he put you in a trance and told you what to do.”

This was exactly why Grantaire hadn’t wanted to talk to his friends about this. He knew they would all jump to the wrong conclusions. Quite honestly, he was just glad that he hadn’t told any of them about Enjolras smelling him.

Finally, Grantaire gave up. “Trust, my friends,” he said, and stood up, “Is a wonderful thing, which none of you seem to have in me.”

None of his friends said anything to stop him as he left, only sending concerned glances after him.

At least Grantaire could be sure that the wagon with liquor would be unmanned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s important to me personally that you all know that in my text doc, this chapter was titled
> 
> “plan: yeet E into the ocean”
> 
> thank you!


	11. Shaking the Wings of Their Terrible Youth

_I watch the work of my kin bold and boyful_  
_Toying somewhere between love and abuse_  
_Calling to join them the wretched and joyful_  
_Shaking the wings of their terrible youths_

 _Freshly disowned in some frozen devotion_  
_No more alone or myself could I be_

\- "Angel of Small Death & The Codeine Scene" by Hozier

* * *

“Would you tell me about the day they caught you?”

It was a long, humid night, and Grantaire had an increasingly difficult time convincing himself that the way he couldn’t stop staring at Enjolras meant nothing more than a fascination with his creation, or with his alluring nature.

He asked the question partly to prove his own mere curiosity to himself, but also hoping that Enjolras would react badly. A fight would give Grantaire’s racing thoughts something else to focus on.

Enjolras’s face stayed unmoving, eyes closed for a second from where he was sitting on the floor leaned against the wall. He had his ankles crossed while Grantaire was sitting on top of his desk as not to doze off, which at this point was more of a question of being disrespectful rather than mortal danger. He felt that Enjolras should have seemed a lot smaller from his position than he did. He still looked powerful, intelligent, serene. And tired.

Grantaire had also stopped thinking of Enjolras as upsettingly human-looking. Well, he was _trying_ to stop at least - it wasn’t that Enjolras was almost-like-human, but that Grantaire’s narrow worldview previously hadn’t offered space for something else entirely. Something that wasn’t human, but also not a monster; something radiant, worthy.

And tired.

Enough time passed that Grantaire had already decided that Enjolras must have dozed off when he finally responded.

“Why?”

“Curiosity, I suppose,” said Grantaire. “By God, you don’t need to, if you don’t want to be reminded. I honestly just cannot wrap my mind around how anyone could have managed to restrain you.”

Enjolras sighed. His eyes opened. “Haven’t they already told you the story?”

Grantaire racked his brain for what he knew. “Éponine told me that almost the entire crew was tone-deaf from their own cannons. And that you were alone.”

Enjolras still didn’t show any kind of emotion. Grantaire wondered if this was how he’d always behaved, or if the recent years had forced him to learn to be the master of his expressions.

“That’s what I suspected,” he said. “I didn’t know, back then. That that’s why they couldn’t hear. I wasn’t entirely sure until now. But yes, you are correct.”

 _Why were you alone?,_ Grantaire wanted to ask. _How in all heavens did they see you, and not realise that each of their tiny lives weren_ _’t worth a fraction of yours?_

Enjolras closed his eyes again. Grantaire kept silent and went back to drawing.

He’d stopped restraining himself from drawing Enjolras, although he wasn’t sure when. The fight against what his fingers wanted to produce had been a losing battle all along, Grantaire supposed. He told himself that it was purely practical for those of his friends who hadn’t seen Enjolras before.

Grantaire had ironically almost forgotten Enjolras’s real presence in the room over his concentration on the ones made of coal on paper before him when the former spoke up, once again proving that he was wide awake.

“Are you producing anything worthwhile today?”

Grantaire glanced up at him, and down at his paper. Three pages were filled with Enjolras’s face, his fingers, his toes, his neck, his hair, his hair, his hair.

“I dearly hope not,” he said. “I feel like all forms of art deemed worthwhile are nothing I would spend my time on.”

“I disagree,” said Enjolras, unsurprised and not unpleasantly. Then, with the same neutral tone, “You’re drawing me.”

Grantaire swallowed. “I am,” he gave in. “I was running out of other muses.”

“Should I feel insulted that it took you months of being locked up with nothing but me in here for hours to take mercy on me as your motive?”

Grantaire blinked. “It- I felt like I was imposing, I didn’t want-“

Enjolras, though, was looking at him with something akin to a smile on his face. Was he _teasing_ Grantaire?

“Sure, sure,” he said, reaching out a hand. “Show me.”

It took Grantaire a second to react. He had a blurry memory of deciding it would be best not to give Enjolras all three pages – more than even one was just excessive, wasn’t it? –, but next thing he knew, Grantaire was standing awkwardly over Enjolras as he flipped through the stack of paper in his hands.

Grantaire didn’t know what to do with himself for a moment, physically unable to decide if it would be intruding if he were to sit on Enjolras’s bed, until the latter freed him from his misery with a simple pat on the floorboards next to himself.

Carefully, Grantaire sat down, leaning against the wall.

They weren’t touching, but it occurred to Grantaire that he should not have been as acutely aware of their proximity as he was.

He wasn’t sure if the time that passed in silence was as long as he imagined, or if it was just the unease crawling under his skin. He wanted to analyse Enjolras’s expression, but something about their proximity would have made it too- _something_ to turn and look at him. Instead, Grantaire focused his gaze on Enjolras’s gentle (webbed, orange, beautiful) fingers holding the paper.

Silently, Enjolras said, “I look awful.”

Grantaire physically couldn’t move for a moment. He knew that he wasn’t a learnt artist, but he was still under the impression that-

“Christ,” said Enjolras, looking up at him as if it didn’t matter how near Grantaire was, how they had never been this close before, “I didn’t mean to criticise your work. You’re capable in what you do. I just- haven’t seen my reflection in a long time, and I barely recognise myself.”

Grantaire didn’t say that he thought Enjolras was the last thing he would have described as awful. He didn’t say that he wasn’t sure how he could look any more beautiful than he did.

Grantaire didn’t say anything.

Enjolras studied each page for another handful of moments before turning them over. Then, he closed his eyes and started telling his story.

“I wasn’t entirely without group at the time. I know what the ship’s company that found me and the people here say, how they talk. And they’re partly right. I had left the group I'd grown up with, but it wasn’t entirely my own choice. My views, they were a bit too- anybody but my mother thought- but she passed away shortly before-“

Enjolras paused, opening his eyes and concentrating them on the opposite wall. He swallowed before carrying on.

“None of this is relevant. I had family, however. Two of my closest- well, friends I should say, and me. We shared a lot of the same mindsets that made me unpopular before. Still, I was a lot more interested in human culture than them, and more reckless. Brave, I thought myself back then, but the outcome speaks for itself, I should think.

“So I was alone on that day, planning to meet with Combeferre and Courfeyrac - my friends - in a few days time. I was travelling near Spain when I got too close to a popular sea lane and came across that ship.”

He narrowed his eyes, but still they stayed unmoving on a fixed point opposite of them.

“I should explain a few things. You must have realised, when that man came in here before, that our Song can do much more than lure someone in. You might make anyone do what you wish, within limits of your own abilities and their willpower. My- we- well, we do tend to lure them in to kill, for one because it makes for an easy prey and secondly because it makes others stay away from your home.

“However, I have always found it hard to grasp how we might with ease kill what seemed so similar to our nature. You see, my mother was born a human, a Frenchwoman, before she drowned at sea. She was found by my father and became one of us. Knowing this, I started questioning parts of our society quite early and refused to kill if it wasn’t necessary.

“By the time I left my group, I had started sending ships away instead of luring them in. It felt like the only logical thing to do, but looking back I do realise the danger I put my family in with releasing humans who might tell stories of what had happened and attract others to come the same way.

“To come back to that day, there really shouldn’t have been any danger. Since I had no permanent home at the time, there was no reason why I shouldn’t just have sent them on when I noticed the ship.

“I wasn’t sure what was happening, at first. I wondered if I wasn’t yet in their field of hearing, if I was doing something wrong, etcetera. It wasn’t until they started throwing their nets, shouting at each other and clearly not understanding anything, that I understood what was going on.”

Enjolras was silent for a long moment. He was gnawing on his lower lip, the only sign of thought.

“I could have escaped,” he finally said. “I’m sure of it. The sea wasn’t incredibly deep at that point, but deep enough that I could have dived down and escaped. The truth is that I was so arrogant and so God damned faithful and curious that I almost wanted to be caught, just to talk to them. They were Frenchmen, and I’m fluent, as you know. I wanted to prove everything that was ever taught to me wrong, my family, my father-“

He finally looked at Grantaire. “The first time you talked to me, you said that the government wants to keep the masses dumb and aren’t investing in education for that reason. It’s one of the few things you’ve ever uttered that I don’t disagree with. But there is also this: there are few to none of us who know the truth of our similarities, or care to know them, and I should think that it is the same for your kind.

“Some things are bad not because someone chooses for them to be this way, but because society as a whole is uneducated on the subject. There isn’t one single evil person, a king on his throne, spending his day feasting and ordering executions and deciding it’s better that humans and sirens are kept apart and taught to fear another. There is nothing but a lack of knowledge, which can be _fixed.”_

Grantaire closed his eyes against Enjolras’s intense stare.

There it was again: Grantaire, holding onto a short slippery rope with his friends pulling on the other end, running towards a cliff, laughing at Grantaire for trying to hold them back. Only now, Enjolras was on the other end, pulling with more force than his friends had ever dared.

Grantaire kept his eyes closed for a few more moments before swallowing, and only then did he say, “One should think that after all of this, you would be fed up and try to stay as far away from humans as possible.”

Enjolras frowned and had the audacity to look like he didn’t understand what Grantaire was implying.

“Obviously,” he said as if it was, “It’s quite the contrary. You must see that I have never seen a greater need for change? That there is no way I would simply retire and just allow men like Thénardier to keep doing these things to others like me, or for my kind to keep doing what they still do to yours?”

Enjolras was still holding the drawings of himself. It occurred to Grantaire that should they now hear the key turning inside its lock, there was no way they could make it look like nothing out of the ordinary was happening.

He looked at Enjolras and said, “You’re only one person, and you intend to change the way this entire world functions?”

Enjolras scoffed. “No,” he said. “I won’t be alone. And it won’t have to be the _entire_ world. There are civilisations where humans and sirens live in peace with another.”

Grantaire tried not to laugh. “And where would that be? Certainly nowhere I’ve ever been.”

“Of course not,” said Enjolras, almost smiling. “Your country doesn’t know the entire world, even if it likes to believe so. Thank God it doesn’t.”

Grantaire did all that he could not to start shouting at Enjolras for his stupid, awful, fatal hopefulness; he changed the subject.

“About your mother,” he said, and Enjolras immediately turned his head away. Grantaire, though, still couldn’t keep his mouth shut. “She grew up as a human, you said, and died at sea, and then again died as a siren. But you were born a siren, correct?"

“Right,” said Enjolras, looking down at the paper in his hands. He paused a few seconds before seemingly realising what he was holding and handing them back to Grantaire, who slipped them inside his jacket.

“That’s how our kind originated," he said, "At least according to the legends. When humans became too greedy, started insisting on ruling the water as well as the land, one of them was forced to come aboard against their will, and died in a storm long before their time should have come. They became the first siren, out of sheer willpower and because it was just.

“Even now, humans who die unjust deaths on sea become sirens, though it is rare, and even more so that they find their way to my family. We lived relatively secluded, even for our kind. It might not be surprising that my mother wasn’t especially well-liked. Though she was not nearly as unpopular as myself.”

“In any case,” said Grantaire, “That is a much better tale than the one humans tell about your origins.”

The most common was that of a woman (of course) who, rejected by her lover, had thrown herself into the sea and never fully drowned. Out of anger, she lured in any man who she came across, killing- or damning them to become sirens as well.

“Oh, I know,” said Enjolras. “To be fair, you don’t come off very well in our stories, either.”

“I’m not sure that it is,” said Grantaire. “Fair, I mean. But does this mean it is entirely untrue that humans can be turned into sirens by other sirens?”

Enjolras smiled. “I’m afraid so,” he said. “Though my father used to jokingly imply that he had something to do with my mother’s turning, since he was there when her ship sank. She’d been captain, and we never figured out why her death might have been unjust, since she had quite literally steered it into the storm in a fit of recklessness. Or bravery.”

“You must take after her, I suppose,” said Grantaire.

Enjolras laughed.

Actually _laughed_.

Grantaire could do nothing but stare and hope that it wasn’t written on his face how clearly he would have done quite literally any violent act imaginable in order to be responsible for this kind of sound again.

“I suppose I do,” said Enjolras.

And then, something amazing happened. In one instance, Grantaire was smiling into himself, feeling the heat in his face and praying it didn’t show differently from his usual booze-induced flush. In the next, Enjolras had put his head onto Grantaire’s shoulder, like he hadn’t much thought about it.

Like it didn’t _matter_.

Like he couldn’t guess that Grantaire’s entire brain was lighting up in an attempt to process the sensation of Enjolras’s curls against his neck, the weight of his head, his shoulder pressing against Grantaire’s arm.

Enjolras breathed in deeply through his nose in a sigh. Maybe, possibly, in an attempt to breathe in the scent of the ocean.

“It would explain a lot,” he said.

If Grantaire had been a smarter man, if he had been one with a greater instinct of self-preservation, he would have asked himself if a siren's speaking voice did not, after all, have the same effect as their singing, only weaker, more drawn out. For that was how he felt: the more he talked to Enjolras, the more he heard him rant and the flame in his eyes brighten, the weaker, he knew, wore his resistance, and the more he was inclined to kill whoever he had to in order to obtain Enjolras's freedom.

Grantaire had completely forgotten what they had talked about. “Uh-huh,” he said.

How strange would it be if he rested his head against Enjolras’s?

“What about your family?”, he asked, oblivious to Grantaire’s racing thoughts. “Do you resemble any of them?”

Something about Grantaire’s posture must have changed, because Enjolras lifted his head again to look at him, and said, “I do not mean to intrude. Don’t feel obligated to answer.”

Grantaire had never hated himself quite as much as in this moment.

“No worries,” said Grantaire, hoping that Enjolras would resume his former position if he just kept talking. “It’s a rather hilarious question to me, since I can’t think of a group of people I am less alike. Well, I should say that I haven't seen them for enough years that I wouldn’t be the best judge of outer appearance.”

“How long?”, said Enjolras, still sitting erect and looking at Grantaire. “Since you’ve last seen them?”

Grantaire shrugged. He struggled, for a moment, to remember his own age. It had been a long time since he had even thought of his birthday.

“About ten years,” he finally remembered. “I left to go to sea as soon as someone would pay me, when I was around fourteen. When I returned to my home town a couple of months later, out of necessity rather than because I wanted to, my family had moved to another part of the country.”

At Enjolras’s widened eyes, Grantaire hastened to ensure him, “Oh no, no. They didn’t hate me quite as much to move away simply to flee from me. They simply didn’t care to let me know where they went. I could find it out, of course, quite easily. But there is little appeal in seeking out a group of strangers who will nevertheless be disappointed in what I’ve become.”

“I understand,” said Enjolras. “It’s similar with mine.”

Grantaire snorted. “Is it? As I understand it, you separated with your family over political and moral differences. I was a child that ran away from home because it was useless at school work and had read _Robinson Crusoe_ one time too often.”

Enjolras’s nose wrinkled in distaste. “What an awful book to idolise,” he said.

Grantaire could only stare for a moment, thrown off by Enjolras completely sidestepping what he’d said in favour of criticising his literal taste. “Oh, for sure,” he finally said. “I despise it more the older I get. I could blame my grandmother for giving it to me if you’d prefer.”

Enjolras breathed in, not quite a sigh. “Quite honestly, by now I would prefer having _Robinson Crusoe_ to read over nothing.”

“A sign of how urgently we need to get you out of here,” said Grantaire. “Until then, I’m sure I can get my hands on some of the poetry Jehan has brought with him if I ask very nicely.”

Grantaire was entirely sure that he'd done nothing to deserve the look Enjolras was directing at him, but his heart seemed not to quite have gotten the notion with the way it swelled in his chest.

“Only if he can honestly spare one of them,” said Enjolras in a bad attempt at concealing his delight. Grantaire was oddly proud that he'd for once managed to break through his usually guarded exterior.

“It’s the contrary, he will be delighted. Jehan's been trying to get one of us to share his passion for the written word for the last twenty-four years. He’ll be glad to have someone to talk to about it.”

Enjolras and his friends must have rubbed off on Grantaire. For this moment, just once, he was fully unwilling to recognise that there was no way Enjolras would ever get a chance to have idle conversation with Jehan. Even if they managed to free him, even if it all went as perfectly as possible, none of them would see Enjolras again.

In this moment, though, as Enjolras laid his head onto Grantaire’s shoulder again, he could pretend it would be okay. He had to make the conscious decision to keep breathing, but he could pretend.

“I would love that,” said Enjolras, and Grantaire genuinely couldn’t tell if he, too, had made the active decision to ignore reality, or if he was genuinely delusional.

Very carefully, he leaned his own head against Enjolras’s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Grantaire struggling to remember his own age?? twenties culture
> 
> EDIT: I don't know if anyone thinks to check here in case they notice the missing update, but I'm sorry, I won't be able to post a chapter this week !! life is busy and I'll have to figure out if from here on out I'll update whenever the next part is ready, or just Sundays every two weeks. I'll try my very best not to go over two weeks without an update though, and there probably are only four chapters left, so we'll figure it out !
> 
> thank you!


	12. You'll Drink Yourself to Death

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologise for the delay with this update! things have been more stressful than expected and I had a hard time with this chapter for no particular reason at all.
> 
> with how my life is going I might only be able to post the last few chapters every two weeks, but I really cannot tell yet. I'm trying my very best not to go over two weeks without update, promise!

_Look who's digging their own grave_  
_That is what they all say_  
_You'll drink yourself to death_

\- "Icarus" by Bastille

* * *

Marius had started snoring.

Grantaire couldn’t sleep.

Christ, it wasn’t like he was unused to strange sleeping conditions. For some reason, though, Marius’s silent snoring - it was more of a loud breathing, really - was having Grantaire lie awake for hours on end.

Maybe it was just that he’d run out of excuses, and he was simply fixating on the sound as justification for his running thoughts. Grantaire used to be able to sleep in a room full of dozens of snoring men with little problem. Back then, though, physical exhaustion as well as a healthy supply of rum (which he could obtain easier than now, having to sneak behind Bahorel’s back) had been his loyal assistants.

Well, there was no work to do this late in the evening. A bottle of rum, however, could be obtained.

It was the point of night dark enough that it was impossible to distinguish the treetops overhead from the cloudy night sky. Grantaire did not dare take the lantern dangling over the sleep wagon’s steps with him, in case Montparnasse or one of the other guards would spot him. He was doing nothing that would earn their scrutiny, but still, he could use one conversation less with any of them.

The problem wasn’t with finding his way to the liquor wagon, anyway. The bottles weren’t locked away, either; the only issue Grantaire would have to face would come the next day, when Bahorel would take stock and notice what was missing. Grantaire wasn’t the only one of the men who took their pick every now and then, at least he didn’t believe so. Still, whenever Bahorel’s disappointed eyes would land on him, both knew that there was a great chance that he was guilty.

That, however, was something Grantaire wouldn’t have to worry about for a little longer. The only thing he had to focus on now was _sleep_.

It was only halfway through a bottle of rum that Grantaire realised it would be a bad idea to be found the next day passed out next to the liquor wagon. He was no proud man, far from it, but even he had a line he would not cross, if only for fear of Jehan’s disappointment.

So, Grantaire got up. He was already feeling much closer to being capable of sleeping; he would simply finish his drink in bed.

Just to be safe, he took another bottle that he stuffed into the lining of his jacket. If Bahorel was going to be cross with him anyway, he might as well use the chance to build a small stash.

Halfway to his sleeping place, Grantaire started hearing a silent conversation. The nearer he got, the more he picked up on an agitated albeit low voice; someone who wanted to be screaming but not be heard by the entire company. It was no strange occurrence since most of the workers seemed more than inclined on shouting their way out of a conflict on a normal day and the mood had started to shift towards the worse the colder it got.

The company was travelling north at the same time as summer was fading into autumn, only speeding up the process. It seemed that from one day to the other, the sun had lost its stinging quality, and on the next, trees were changing colour and raining down on them. Again, Grantaire was used to much worse conditions, but around him most conversation had shifted towards short grumbles and loud shouts, which was precisely why Grantaire had no reason to suspect anything like _this_ would happen.

He had barely taken a step around the wagon hiding the voices’ source when Grantaire took in first the action, then the figures:

Someone striking the other across the face, hard.

Then: Thénardier, his hand still risen, Éponine, trying not to curl in on herself.

Grantaire had taken a step back into hiding before he had processed any of it. It only took another second for self-loathing to set in.

What was he _doing?_ Thénardier, much older and far from being in his physical prime, had nothing on him. Grantaire would have beaten him into the ground before he’d had a chance to lower his hand, like he’d wanted to for months. It would have been the right thing to do for any other man that was no coward.

Grantaire could have killed Thénardier, right then. He wouldn’t have stopped until Éponine had asked him to. But they had a God damned _plan,_ one that Grantaire would have ruined immediately had he done anything to anger Thénardier.

For a moment, still he wondered: weren’t they close enough now? If he were to kill Thénardier, then whatever guard was standing outside Enjolras’s prison, use the key he’d obtained, kill whoever was inside-

But of course, Grantaire was incapable of doing any of this. He could have killed Thénardier right then, he’d _wanted to_. But he was no murderer, not even for Enjolras’s freedom, and drunken rage would only get him remotely far until a bullet would put an end to his plans.

And wasn’t that a show of how he had been right all along? Hadn’t Enjolras been right about how Grantaire was incapable of believing, of dying?

“That will teach you some respect,” hissed Thénardier just a handful of feet away. “Don’t you dare do that again. I am still your _father_.”

Grantaire breathed. He only noticed he was clenching his fists when he felt the bottle still in his hand, and only noticed the bottle in his hand when he clenched his fists.

He downed what was left, a bit more than half, before turning and taking a different route to his sleep wagon.

Grantaire was just climbing its steps when a voice behind him, not at all keeping quiet in order not to wake who was sleeping, made him still.

“Grantaire,” said Montparnasse. “You’re awake, I see. There’s work.”

He put his foot back down, carefully, and turned around. “I thought I was only needed by tomorrow morning,” he said.

God, he was _exhausted_.

“Yeah, change of plans. I mean, I was going to wake up Beaumont, but since I just ran into you.”

And was that not just his luck?

He could have said no, realised Grantaire. He could have told Montparnasse that he was about to pass out, that he had been drinking, that he simply needed some rest. The other would have snorted, laughed maybe, but he would have let Grantaire go.

But only a few dozen feet away, Enjolras was locked in a room with someone who both feared him and had a rifle ready to use. Someone who wouldn’t let him read, speak, who made him wear a gag.

“Sure,” said Grantaire, and followed Montparnasse.

***

“Good evening,” said Grantaire, taking a deep bow that only had him loose his balance just a bit after the door had closed behind him.

It took Enjolras a moment longer than usual to get rid of his mask. When he did, the corners of his mouth were curled downward. “You are _reeking_.”

“The three words every man wishes to be greeted by,” said Grantaire. He stood before his desk, staring at it for a while, thinking. It might have been a good idea to sit on top as he was prone to do, feeling frustratingly close to nodding off (now that he couldn’t). Just standing up, though, proved a challenge as Grantaire remembered the wagon was not, in fact, currently moving.

He tried, without success, to ignore Enjolras’s eyes watching him as he carefuly sat down on the floor, his back against one of the desk legs.

“I apologise,” said Grantaire, “For not bringing any books with me. I had no time to get them.”

Jehan had happily agreed to let him lend any of his poetry collections he desired. He enquired after Enjolras’s wellbeing a tad more often now, too, as if his enthusiasm for reading had finally made someone Jehan had only ever known through Grantaire’s narration into a tangible person.

Grantaire told him that Enjolras loved the books, copiously leaving out that they, most of the time, served to feed their arguments rather than as a pleasant distraction.

Enjolras preferred arguments over silent reading, anyway, which made the way he wrinkled his nose now – barely noticeably – the more confusing to Grantaire.

“Of course,” said Enjolras. “I see that your time was spent in a much more sensible manner.”

Grantaire sucked at his own teeth. God knows he was used to his friends assuming the worst of him; that he had gotten drunk right before a shift instead of gathering books, even water. That their conversations meant so little to Grantaire that he didn’t care to be even somewhat sober for them.

Still, it made something in his throat clench to see that Enjolras, too, did not question any of it.

“Everyone has their weakness,” said Grantaire.

Enjolras looked him in the eye. “Singular?”

Grantaire tried to simply stare back, keep his gaze, and failed as so often before as his sight began to swim. He blinked down at his hands. “What other allegations do you wish to make against me, then?”

“Are you sure that is a question you want answered?” Enjolras’s mouth curled up, forming something that was decidedly not a smile. “You might be your own best judge, anyhow.”

Grantaire knew that Enjolras was cruel as way of defence. He _knew_. Still, he was too exhausted, too disappointed, to prohibit himself from fanning the flame in his eyes.

“Please,” said Grantaire. He wished he had the energy to mirror Enjolras’s expression, but it was hard enough just to keep his eyes open. “Enlighten me. In chronological order, starting by whatever you think might be my biggest fault.”

Unbelievably, Grantaire saw Enjolras hesitate. He saw him doubt that this was a conversation worth having, a topic worth fighting over.

But Grantaire would have none of this. Enjolras had made many accusations against him over the course of the last few months, many more than he could have counted. This, however, seemed more personal, more serious. They weren’t in a political debate; if Enjolras had something he wished to criticise in Grantaire’s character, his personality, he would be a coward not to hear it.

It was as if just as summer collapsed into autumn, their newfound sense of peace - Grantaire’s fantasy of a world where Enjolras was not only tolerating his company because it was the only one he had - was crumbling into something more comfortable and cruel right before them.

Obviously, it was Grantaire’s fault. After all, it was him who, when Enjolras still kept silent, pulled out the rum stored in his jacket he had halfway forgotten about, and drank a mouthful from it.

Enjolras’s eyes narrowed ever-so-slightly.

“One,” he said, gesturing at Grantaire, “Speaks for itself. It seems like you are incapable of _thinking_.”

Grantaire smiled, and took another swig.

“Two. You possess no intentions to use your free will. When was the last time you made a decision by yourself, one that was not only the easy way out, but the right thing to do?”

Grantaire was genuinely confused. “I am talking to you now, aren’t I?”

“Please,” said Enjolras. “You know just as well as I do that we wouldn’t be in this situation if your friends had not told you to come in contact with me.”

Grantaire blinked. _Did_ he know this? Was it the truth? He was dimly aware that he’d been the one to tell his friends about Enjolras’s condition. However, Cosette had been the first one to even bring it up, while Grantaire had done nothing but argue against his friends’ ideas as to what to do.

And then there had been him and Éponine, sitting on the floor between beds, Grantaire telling her that he would keep doing his job, keep working for the Thénardiers without complaint, stop any attempt at freeing Enjolras, if she only wished so.

“Three,” said Enjolras, and Grantaire realised he had lost his chance to argue. He swallowed more of the burning liquor. “You have not a cell in your body that is able to believe.”

“Are you calling me an atheist? I didn’t expect-”

“No,” said Enjolras matter-of-factly. “I am talking about your utter lack of belief in _anything_. In yourself; any man or woman, any cause at all; humanity in its entirety; our plan. You prefer to be the one to say ‘I knew it’ when something goes wrong rather than to put your hope into it. You prefer not to live because you are terrified of death.”

“I prefer-”, said Grantaire, and stopped. Jesus, this was too much theoretical talk for this time of night and the amount of liquor he’d downed while listening to Enjolras speak. He could barely tell if he’d just been analysed so correctly that it surprised himself, or if he was surprised because Enjolras thought so wrongly of him.

One thing, though, he knew. “I know you have thought me incapable of believing ever since we met,” said Grantaire. “But I have to say I am surprised you have not since changed your opinion.”

“What reason would I have had?”, said Enjolras. “Please, I am genuinely curious.”

“You must know that I believe in the rightness of what we’re doing, our plan. I am helping you because it is _right_. And I believe in the wrongness of this,” he gestured all around himself, “This _circus_.”

Enjolras made a sound close to a scoff, as if those things were so obvious they did not matter. As if they didn’t frame their entire current existence.

“Most importantly, I thought it would have become more than clear that I believe in you.”

Enjolras, either for the sake of cruelty or entirely unaware of it, laughed. “In _me_?”

Grantaire shrugged. “I don’t see how one could not.”

“I have yet to see that proven. I doubt a single utterance has ever left my mouth that you have not declared in some way unreasonable.”

Grantaire knew not what to say. Enjolras must have known, he _must_ have been aware that it had never been his person that Grantaire meant to doubt. It was that he was too good, too just, too God damned capable of believing in the best in everything which terrified Grantaire to his very core. There had never been a single doubt in his mind that Enjolras himself, no matter his too-everything opinions, was the single most beautiful and terrifying - terrifyingly beautiful as much as beautifully terrifying - person Grantaire had ever laid his eyes on.

And there was absolutely no way for him to voice any of this. Not only would he have died in mortification, but also was Grantaire’s head swimming in an increasingly unpleasant way. All he wanted to do was to not have Enjolras look at him like _that_ anymore, not have to think, sleep.

So, he closed his eyes, and did just that.

***

It needed a slap to his face for Grantaire to realise that he had just proven Enjolras’s first point - apparently, he was entirely incapable of thinking.

“Idiot,” someone was saying. “You bloody _idiot_.”

For a second, Grantaire was sure it was Enjolras who was talking, until he opened his eyes and looked straight into those of Montparnasse. Seeing that he was awake, the latter hit Grantaire over the head again, harder.

“We could all be _dead_ because of your stupidity. Do you hear me? Bloody drunkard. Don’t bet on seeing any of this month’s pay.”

Grantaire was hauled up to his feet as he realised that he’d still been sitting on the floor where he’d fallen asleep.

“Count your damned luck that it’s asleep, I swear to God. You’ll _wish_ it’d killed you by the time I’m done with you.”

Not getting a chance to find either his balance or his footing, Grantaire tried desperately to get a glance at Enjolras, if he’d managed to get his mask back on in time, if Montparnasse had done anything to him.

Grantaire was pushed down that wagon’s stairs just as he turned to look, making it impossible to lessen his impact with the floor much at all. From his position on the ground, he could just see how Enjolras sat up in bed, mask on, his eyes on Grantaire as furious as he had first seen them as the door was shut by another guard.

Montparnasse kicked Grantaire before he walked away. “Follow. You’ll have to learn that your bloody actions have consequences.”

Grantaire struggled to his feet, unable to decide if he should believe Montparnasse’s words – if so, it might have been smarter to run in the other direction.

But not only was he in no physical condition to be running, but there was also this: For the first time in Grantaire’s life, there was something holding him back from simply leaving a place where he was not wanted.

He hated it, but he followed.

Montparnasse was confident enough in his authority not to turn around to Grantaire during their march through the camp. Around them, the company was getting ready to continue their journey, preparing the horses, gathering belongings, simply having breakfast.

They passed Éponine, who was helping another worker put harnesses onto a pair of horses. She looked up, narrowing her eyes.

Grantaire was feeling numb all the way from his hair down to his toes, but some type of emotion must still have shown on his face because she didn’t even bother excuse herself before she hurried after the two men.

“Montparnasse,” she called after him, but the other still didn’t bother to turn.

She walked right past Grantaire, ignoring him, catching up with Montparnasse’s quick steps. “What did he do?”, she asked.

Grantaire would have felt insulted if he’d had the energy for it.

“He’s an utter oaf is what he did,” said Montparnasse. “Fell asleep on duty.”

Éponine sent a glance back at Grantaire that his bad conscious really could have used without.

“That’s what has you worked up like this? Nothing happened, did it?”

Montparnasse came to a halt so abruptly that Grantaire had to make an effort not collide with his back.

“And he has to thank all heavenly realms for that,” said Montparnasse, jabbing a finger into Grantaire's chest. “The only reason we’re not all bloody dead is that the siren was asleep and didn’t even notice.”

“Meh,” said Éponine, shrugging in an effort to downplay Grantaire’s mistake. He wanted to kiss her, although it did little to convince Montparnasse, still looking ready to strangle him right then and there. “Nonetheless, nothing did happen. He made a mistake and he’ll learn from it. How long until we’ll be back where we picked him up? A handful of weeks? We both know you hardly have men to spare who are willing to do his job.”

“Oh, nice try,” said Montparnasse, his smile cutting into his cheeks. “I know he’s your childhood sweetheart, but that changes nothing about how your dear father is about to cut his head off as soon as he learns what happened.”

He should have just killed him, Grantaire realised. Since he had managed to make a mess of things either way, at least Thénardier could have been dead by now.

Éponine, inexplicably, smiled. “I though you were smarter than this,” she said to Montparnasse. “You and I both know that he will blame you for not anticipating that something like this would happen, even before he would as much as lay a hand on this idiot. Grantaire's drinking habits are known widely enough that even I wonder why you would have let him work,” she gestured to Grantaire’s entire form, “In this condition.”

Montparnasse stared, his gaze alternating between the two of them, for a long enough moment that it gave Grantaire’s body time to regain feeling. Slowly but surely, terror surged from his fingertips down to his toes, up to his hair.

Finally, Montparnasse released a breath. “You’re dismissed from guard duties,” he decided. “You may take up other work if you’re desperate to keep travelling with us until we reach your hometown. But don’t expect to be paid for it. I feel sorry enough for you to be this _excessively_ nice already.”

He stalked away. The feeling of terror did not recede from Grantaire's limbs. What did it matter that he wasn't sent away? What did it matter that he could stay with the company? He was utterly _useless_ now.

“Jesus Christ, Grantaire,” said Éponine. “Was that really necessary?”

He shook his head and walked away, before she could do the same.

Wasn’t it ironic that after all this time, Grantaire had been right to believe that their plan would not work?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> why yes, there IS (half of) a stolen Oscar Wilde quote in here!  
> (my fear that someone would notice and think I tried to get away with it made me add this note)
> 
> thank you!


	13. I Really Fucked It up This Time

_You're not as brave as you were at the start_  
_Rate yourself and rake yourself,_  
_Take all the courage you have left_  
_Wasted on fixing all the problems that you made in your own head_

_But it was not your fault but mine_  
_And it was your heart on the line_  
_I really fucked it up this time_  
_Didn't I, my dear?_

\- "Little Lion Man" by Mumford & Sons

* * *

Optimism.

Everyone around Grantaire seemed obsessed with making an optimist out of him. He figured this was a good opportunity as any to practice a cheerful outlook on life. So, Grantaire was trying to assemble a mental list of everything that was good about this situation.

One. He had been _right._ Enjolras had been wrong to expect the best from everyone around him, especially Grantaire, and he’d managed to prove him wrong. Or was it cheating, the way Grantaire himself had turned out to be the bad he'd always insisted he saw in the world? Anyway, in some way this was surely worth celebrating.

Two. This was a good reminder. There were days when Grantaire felt he played the role of the cynical drunkard more than he lived it, all in order to protect his friends from their naivety.

Lying on his back between their storage of rum and wine, being jostled about between the crates during their journey of the day, there was little point in pretending Grantaire was not the useless alcoholic his friends tended to think him.

Three. Although coming to lie there had been no more than a reflex, the natural destination of Grantaire’s agitated nerves, it had turned out to be a perfect hiding spot as well. Neither Jehan nor Bahorel had taken the time to check their liquor storage before beginning their journey early that morning, and Grantaire was far from caring to make himself known to the men leading the carriage. If it were up to him, his friends would go on not knowing about the ruin Grantaire had made of their plans for as long as possible.

Four. Since this was not how Grantaire's life worked, and it was just a matter of time until Bahorel and Jehan would learn what had happened, it wouldn’t make much of a difference to Bahorel that Grantaire was slowly but surely making his way through the crates of liquor that surrounded him.

Strangely enough, none of this worked to improve Grantaire’s mood by much at all. He supposed optimism just wasn’t in his nature.

It didn’t help, either, that Éponine’s first destination when she was done with her work around midday was, apparently, Jehan and Bahorel on their wagon. Grantaire should have expected that his own refusal to speak about the matter with her would not keep Éponine from running to his friends and recollecting what she had witnessed. There was a part within Grantaire, he supposed, that was grateful to her for taking this unpleasant job off his hands. At the moment, though, it was deeply buried under rows of nerves so high-strung they seemed ready to snap by the smallest movement of his body.

This being as it was, Grantaire spent little time wondering if he should flee his hiding spot as soon as he heard Éponine’s voice near their wagon, and quickly decided that all he was capable of was closing his eyes and listening as Éponine walked alongside the wagon and relayed what had happened that morning between them and Montparnasse in one agitated rant.

Afterwards, Jehan and Bahorel were silent for long enough to make unease start creeping under Grantaire’s numb skin.

Finally, Jehan breathed in deeply and said, “Well, where is he now?”

Éponine made an annoyed noise. “Don’t ask me,” she said. “I thought he would be either where you are, or where the alcohol is. I'm at a loss now.”

Bahorel sighed. “Well, he’s not-”

Grantaire refused to open his eyes even as he heard Bahorel shift on his seat at the front of the wagon and interrupt himself.

“Is that-?”

_“Grantaire!”_ , said Jehan.

Grantaire raised a hand in greeting, eyes still closed.

“Oh, I swear to Christ,” said Jehan, and ripped the bottle out of Grantaire’s fist. He finally looked up, wondering how he’d even come to be holding it. He couldn’t remember drinking from it, but then again, Grantaire _could_ recollect deciding it wouldn't make a difference now how much he stole from Bahorel.

As Grantaire sat up, the wagon swerved a bit more than it should simply from travelling down a straight road, confirming his suspicions.

“A few weeks,” said Jehan. He didn't even look at Grantaire, not really. “That’s how long you would have needed to keep yourself together for. Just _a few weeks._ Would that have been so hard?”

“They don’t even mind you being drunk on the post,” said Éponine, who had climbed onto the bench next to Jehan in order to lean back to where Grantaire was sitting. “All you would have had to do was _stay conscious._ Even for you, this is a new low.”

“I know,” said Grantaire, because of course he did. “Believe me, I know.”

“So what _happened_?”, asked Bahorel.

And here lay the issue: Nothing. Nothing had happened. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing worth mentioning. Grantaire had ruined their chance at freeing Enjolras, had ruined Enjolras’s life for no good reason whatsoever apart from his apparent inability to use his damned brain.

So he shrugged.

Éponine threw her hands into the air. “I can’t bloody believe this,” she said.

“Years,” said Jehan. “For years I’ve been telling you that you’ll drink yourself to death at some point, and you wouldn’t listen. But I hadn’t anticipated you would take _others_ with you.”

“Well,” started Grantaire, but he didn’t know how to continue, and so he didn’t.

For the first time since he could remember, he had absolutely nothing to say. There was nothing to explain, no solution to find, no joke to be made.

All he wanted, strangely enough, was for Enjolras to shout at him for the better part of a few hours. And then, Grantaire wanted the one thing he was always so desperate for: to be proven wrong. He wanted Enjolras to explain to him a plan he’d prepared; not because he’d had no faith in their first one succeeding, but just to be safe. Enjolras would smile, pleased at having proven Grantaire’s pessimism to be ridiculously incorrect, and happily demonstrate that he had been right to believe in a happy resolution to this prison.

But of course, Grantaire wouldn’t see Enjolras again. And of course, their plan had been the only way out. They had spent enough hours, nights and days, pondering over their options that Grantaire was more sure of this than anything else:

Enjolras had had one way out.

And now he was sure of one other thing: Grantaire had ruined any chances of success.

“I can’t even look at you right now,” said Éponine, and jumped off the wagon. “Talk to me once you’re-”

She paused, meeting Grantaire's eyes with the lack of emotion he only recognised from her usual gaze at her parents. “Actually, just don’t,” she said, and left.

Grantaire had the dim realisation that on any other day, he would have jumped off the back of this wagon already, fled the scrutiny of his friends. As it was, though, he found that he had not a single muscle in his body that was willing to move from its position. For what was the point?

Jehan was still shaking his head. Grantaire didn’t think he’d stopped shaking his head ever since Éponine had told them what was going on.

“We’ll have to think of something else,” said Bahorel, and Grantaire had opened his mouth in order to protest that he didn't need to be reassured, thank you very much, when he saw that the other was talking to Jehan. “We’ll think of another plan. We’re so close to the coast, all we need to do is free him, correct? That can’t be impossible. We’ll use violence if needed.”

Jehan kept silent for a moment, staring ahead at the road. Then, he looked back at Grantaire, and said, “We’ll talk about this later,” and followed Éponine in jumping off the wagon and vanishing to another part of their convoy.

Bahorel glanced back at Grantaire, something akin to pity in his eyes, and wasn't that the worst reaction of anyone so far?

Grantaire had had _enough,_ but all the while, his body was still unwilling to move. So he let himself fall back into his former position, lying in between their storage, closed his eyes, covered his face with his jacket, and tried not to think.

***

If someone had asked him, Grantaire would not have been able to tell if he spent minutes or hours in the same position, drifting in and out of consciousness with the by now familiar sway of the wagon beneath him, or if he might have been passed out for a day or two without anyone bothering to rouse him.

This was not quite true; Grantaire thought he remembered Cosette standing over him, making air of her anger by shouting it into his face. None of her accusations were ones that Grantaire’s mind had not thrown at himself at some point in the last hours (days?), leading him to believe that he might only have dreamed the incident into existence. In the end, Cosette had been pulled away by Marius, trying to prevent her volume from rousing anyone’s interest, which might as well have been the idea of Grantaire’s subconscious as it could have been real.

If anything, it was surprising that Montparnasse hadn’t yet sought him out to either finish the job of ripping Grantaire’s head off, or to go through with his promise of making him work for his stay.

At some point in the evening - the sunset betrayed the time of day, if not which day it actually was - Grantaire opened his eyes once again and realised that the wagon underneath him was now unmoving, and the seat in front had been left empty. He closed his eyes again, trying to be grateful for the silence around him that should by all means have made it easier to fall back asleep. But something about realising that he was alone made Grantaire’s skin crawl in a way that the constant movement and noise hadn't, and he gave up his efforts quickly.

Grantaire's body felt equally numb as his mind did, for which he would have thanked all Gods if there had been a single shred of believe left inside him. As it was, he simply made his way past wagons and horses and working men and women to where he thought his sleep wagon might be, hoping the snoring around him would ironically lull him back to sleep, since the silence had disturbed him so. Halfway to his destination, Grantaire realised that he had left his jacket behind, but lacked the energy to turn around and walk back the few metres in order to get it. He found that he couldn't feel the cold on his skin, anyway.

It was only a moment after this thought that Beaumont, one of the other guards that regularly played the canary for Montparnasse, stepped before Grantaire in a way that suggested he'd tried to get his attention before, and Grantaire must have unintentionally ignored him.

"Grantaire," he said, maybe repeated. "I need a favour."

Grantaire heard himself laugh, although he felt none of either the joy or bitterness that usually accompanied the sound. "What ever could I help you with today?"

"Well, listen," said Beaumont, wringing his hands in front of him. He looked desperate, Grantaire realised. "I'm supposed to work tonight, and I would do it, of course, you know I usually follow the plan. But you might know that I am originally from a town close to where we are now, which I stupidly only just realised. And growing up, I had this neighbour, who-"

"Please," said Grantaire. "Spare me your life story. What do you _want_?"

"There is this woman I haven't seen in quite a few years, which I am very sorry about, if you know what I mean," said Beaumont. "And tonight might be my only chance to go and see her. If you could work tonight in my stead - I will gladly take one of your shifts these days, you have my word - I would be forever grateful."

With a start that went so violently throughout his entire body that Grantaire was convinced it must have been obvious to the man before him, he realised that Beaumont must not have heard that Grantaire had basically been let go from his position. But he made no show of acknowledgement, simply looking desperate for Grantaire's consent.

Somewhere deep in his bones, Grantaire somehow found the energy and nerve to sigh deeply. “You owe me for this,” he said, still sure that the way his heart was vibrating in his chest must have been audible if not visible. “The shift should start in just a minute, correct?”

At the smallest sign of a nod from Beaumont, Grantaire was striding away, doing everything in his might as not to break into a sprint. He was convinced that with every passing second, Montparnasse could walk around the corner, spot Beaumont, and explain his mistake. But there was something Grantaire needed to do if this misstep was going to be of any use.

He found Marius and Cosette, thank God, to be the last ones sitting at a fire that had burned down to nothing but glowing coals.

Grantaire started to speak as soon as they spotted him as not to give either of them the time to shout at him for what he’d done (or continue to shout; he was still unsure if he’d dreamed of their earlier encounter). “I need you to do me a favour,” he said, “And I need you to do it without asking me any questions.”

Marius frowned up at him. “Grantaire, I should think that you of all people are in no position to be-”

“That is so incredibly fair,” said Grantaire, “But another guard has made a mistake, and there is the tiniest of chances that Enjolras could flee tonight, you hear me? So I need you to start a fire - make it look like an accident, this is important - and let it become big enough to be a serious distraction before you start shouting for help, yes?”

Cosette was frowning, but she nodded. “You think there is a chance we’re close enough to the water that Enjolras could get away?”

"It can't be more than 40 kilometres left to the coast," said Marius, speaking more to himself than either of them.

“I have no idea if there's even a chance,” said Grantaire, and he truly did not. “But we might just have to risk finding it out. I have to get back, we can discuss anything else later. Or, I suppose if Enjolras agrees to try, I will be in contact in a few months time.”

“Jesus,” said Marius. “All right. When do you want us to start the distraction?”

“As soon as possible, in case anyone notices there's been a mistake and drags me from my post,” said Grantaire. “I just need a few minutes to discuss with Enjolras if he is willing to take the chance. Do not wait longer than half an hour, preferably less.”

Both friends nodded, and that was enough to give Grantaire permission to turn and make his way to Enjolras’s carriage.

The guard outside, horribly, started laughing as soon as he realised who it was that was walking towards him.

Grantaire had been so absolutely convinced that none of this would work that he could almost ignore the way his chest constricted painfully at the evidence of his doubts.

“I thought Montparnasse must have killed you,” said the guard. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Grantaire, impossibly, produced a shrug. “You know him. He’s always screaming about one thing or another and it’s all forgotten as soon as he needs someone to step in for him when he doesn’t want to do the dirty work.”

The guard laughed again. “If that isn’t the truth,” he said. Then, he took his key and knocked at the door before opening it.

Grantaire felt each rap as if they were bullets being shot through his chest.

The guard inside couldn’t seem to get outside soon enough. However, he, too, didn’t hide his grin at the sight of Grantaire.

Before Grantaire could say anything, though, the other man was already speaking. “Ridiculous, isn’t it? You’d think Montparnasse would take his punishments seriously. Being all high and mighty all the time, but when it comes down to it he lets everyone walk over him because he’s so desperate for anyone to do the job.”

The man from inside shook his head, but resumed his way down the stairs. “Well, doesn’t bother me, as long as I can go and get something to drink,” he said. He patted Grantaire’s shoulder as he walked past him. “Have fun in there.”

Grantaire had no idea how he managed to walk up the steps and past the door, considering how he had lost all feeling in his body. But there he was, inside the room, staring at Enjolras's form sitting up on the floor as the door closed behind him.

For a long, stupid moment, him and Enjolras simply stared at each other, both unmoving. Only when Grantaire remembered he had a voice that he could use, although all it produced was a broken sound of “Uhm,” did Enjolras seem to remember that he could take his mask off in Grantaire’s presence.

“Did you-,” started Enjolras, but the hope in his eyes was enough for Grantaire to find his voice before Enjolras could jump to any conclusions.

“Someone made a mistake,” he said. “I imagine that once Montparnasse wakes up tomorrow morning and finds out I’ve been working, he’ll want to kill first me and then the poor men who put me here.”

Enjolras nodded, his lips pressed together. “All right,” he said, standing up straight. “Then please, let me resolve some things I haven't been able to stop thinking about while I can. I want to apologise for my misconduct the last time we talked. I was speaking out of a place of anger rather than honest opinion, and I would not want-”

Anger shot up Grantaire’s throat, a feeling he had ironically lacked during the conversation Enjolras was referring to. He interrupted the other by waving a hand between them. “Spare me your pity. You must know that I would still do all in my power to help you, even if you thought me the devil himself. There is no need to become desperate for my goodwill now.”

Enjolras physically took a small step back. “I’m more than aware,” he said. “Helping me escape is the right thing to do, after all, so I trust you to do it. I was simply trying not to leave anything untrue stand between us, since there is no guarantee we will see each other again.”

Grantaire blinked. “Well,” he said, “Don’t you think there are more pressing matters to discuss? We are still a few day’s travel away from the sea, but this is the best chance we are going to get. I told Cosette and-”

“Grantaire,” said Enjolras. “You’re not listening to me. This is a matter of five minutes.”

Grantaire tried not to roll his eyes, he really did. “I’m just- this isn’t _important_. There is no reason to worry about you having wounded my pride or what in all heavens you’re trying to-”

“It’s important to _me_ ,” said Enjolras. “I can’t bear the thought of our last real conversation having been-”

“Fine,” said Grantaire, at the end of where his nerves could reach. “Then let’s agree on a meeting _after_ this. I’ll listen to you then. Once this stupid escape plan has worked and you’re _safe_.”

Enjolras simply stared at him, unmoving, for the longest moment of Grantaire's existence, before he nodded. “Agreed,” he said.

“Thank you,” said Grantaire, and he hoped it was audible that he truly, deeply meant it. “So, the situation is this. We’re still about 40 kilometres away from the coast, so we have two options. I have told Cosette and Marius to start a distraction by means of a fire in about thirty minutes, like we have discussed before, so with a bit of luck this guard will be as easily distracted as the last one. You would have to travel at least through the entire night, though, and there is no way we can keep everyone from noticing you’ve fled for more than an hour or two.

"Or we let this distraction pass, wait until we’re right by the coast and pray for two easily distracted guards- or I could unload this rifle and hope that no one will notice until I find a moment of inattention and kill whoever is outside-”

But Enjolras was already shaking his head. “We have to try now,” he said. “It carries the least risk. Montparnasse is asleep, you said, and I'm a fast traveller. I will have reached the coast by sunrise, there is no way Thénardier will have spread word about me by then.”

Grantaire nodded, once, and then again. “All right,” he said. “All right. This is it, then.”

Like uncountable times before, Grantaire could do nothing but stare at Enjolras as the latter looked back, his mouth slowly curving into the most beautiful grin Grantaire had ever seen.

“This is it,” said Enjolras, and Grantaire had to close his eyes for a moment at the sight of such uncontrolled, perhaps uncontrollable joy. When he opened his eyes, though, he knew that he was smiling as well.

“What will you do?”, said Enjolras, when he finally interrupted their ridiculous silent grinning. “There is no way Montparnasse won’t blame you for what will happen.”

Grantaire nodded. “Nothing holds me here,” he said. “Cosette and Marius will know why I am gone, and I know where to search for them all in a few months time, once Thénardier has forgotten my face. Or convinced himself that you must have killed me, perhaps. Until then, I will follow you to the coast and board the next ship that will take me.”

Enjolras nodded. “We’ll meet by the sea, then,” he said. "For one last talk."

Grantaire felt himself make a rather childish grimace, but he couldn’t muster the energy to feel too bad about it. “Well,” he said, “Don’t you think you should try and get away as fast as possible? We can still agree on a meeting place in a few weeks time, that should-”

Enjolras crossed his arms before him. “That is out of the question,” he said. “Too much could happen between now and then. Is there a place near your town I can easily find by your description that would work as a meeting place?”

Grantaire would have argued more, he honestly would, if he had seen only the smallest chance of Enjolras giving in. But his crossed arms and clenched jaw left absolutely no room for doubt.

So, Grantaire sighed and said, “There is a forest near the town, west of the harbour, that directly borders the sea. We used to go there as children and dare each other to jump into the water, though nobody was ever brave or stupid enough to try it. Early in the morning, however, and in this cold weather, there should be no reason for anyone to be there, and you will easily find it.”

Enjolras nodded. “Good,” he said. “I will wait for you there.”

Grantaire didn't have time for more than an intake of breath before the screaming outside started.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> maybe it was just coffee jitters, but I got physically so giddy writing this chapter just at the prospect of Enjolras possibly being free soon?? like I'm having a real physical reaction you guys I can't wait for things to finally /happen/
> 
> the next chapter will either be really, really long, or divided into two (which would mean there'll be a total of 16 chapters), it depends on how much writing I can get done this week! we will see
> 
> thank you!


	14. Offer Me That Deathless Death

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> see the end notes for chapter-specific content warnings!

_I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies_  
_I'll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife_  
_Offer me that deathless death_  
_Good God, let me give you my life_

\- "Take Me To Church" by Hozier

* * *

For the first time in over two years, Enjolras was running.

He sought his way through woods and over fields, avoiding any sign of civilisation he came across. It only occurred once to Enjolras, he did not know how long into his flight, to stop and orient himself. The night was at times pitch-black around him, the moon hidden behind heavy clouds, and he did not know the roads he was following. But, somehow, he knew exactly the way to go. Maybe the years of trying to survey his surroundings from within a confined space had sharpened his senses, or maybe the mixture of relief and anxiety pumping through his body was giving him the focus he needed.

In any case, he needed no active effort to recognise that he was nearing Grantaire’s home town and their meeting place. All he needed was to _arrive_.

Enjolras was dimly aware of how his feet and arms were getting scratched up by the uneven ground and thorned twigs and sharp branches flying past, but why should he have cared? He knew the sea would be forgiving, that it would heal him once he touched its water.

 _Water_.

Enjolras had lost every sense of time when he realised that the freezing wind rushing past already carried so much salt, it made him shudder with its resemblance to the freezing waves that would soon envelop him. He knew that he was close enough to the sea, to freedom, that he couldn’t have slowed his pace even if he’d wanted to.

Soon, he would be whole again. He would laugh in Grantaire’s face and tell him that he’d been right to hope for a happy resolution after all. That he hadn’t been naive. He would prove that he’d been right all along, and that Grantaire had been right to follow him, no matter how ridiculous he thought Enjolras’s ideas. And Grantaire would laugh, too, or pretend to be disappointed, or finally smile without a trace of malice or bitterness, and touch Enjolras’s neck, and-

Enjolras broke through the last row of trees as a gust of wind hit his face that carried almost as much salt as the sea itself. Enjolras breathed in, and in, and _in_. He stopped running, finally, and walked the last few steps to the edge of the cliff- _finally_ seeing the waves, watching the point where the ocean met the barely-rising sun and the one where the waves hit the cliffs a dozen metres below- he got ready, closed his eyes, let himself fall forward-

The fraction of a second was all it would have taken before it would have been too late - for Enjolras to have been unable to stop himself, his fall into the ice cold water that would never harm him. But before a fraction of a second had passed, Enjolras remembered

 _warmth_.

The warmth of hands against his chest, of a head resting against his own, and he stopped himself.

Enjolras had to consciously tell his feet to take a step back, and another, and another, until there was enough space between himself and the cliff for him to breathe.

The plan. The _plan_. They had a plan, one that Enjolras had thought of himself, insisted on, and this was not how it was supposed to go. He was to wait.

But the crash of waves against stone drowned out all of Enjolras’s thoughts and filled his head with only one word: Jump. He had made it. He had made it through those God awful years, he had made it to freedom, almost, he just had to jump, let the water envelop and heal him.

No. _Grantaire._ Enjolras practically clutched a mental hand around the word once it was there and pushed it into his mind: Grantaire, Grantaire, _Grantaire_. The plan, God damn. He would meet Grantaire here, and, and, do what exactly?

Enjolras pressed his eyes shut, clasped his hands over his ears in a childish attempt to drown out the waves' call below.

 _Right_. Of course. Grantaire had to run, too. There were too many reasons for Montparnasse to doubt his innocence. Thénardier had gotten rid of other men for less. Montparnasse was going to kill Grantaire, probably literally.

Enjolras couldn’t remember opening his eyes or loosening his clutching hands, but he must have done both, as he stood staring at the water that was slowly getting dyed blood-red by the rising sun and couldn’t for the life of him remember why he’d insisted on meeting Grantaire again.

They would meet, and… part ways? Say their goodbyes?

That was what was happening, was it not?

There was a voice in the back of Enjolras’s mind, reminding him that there were things he meant to explain, apologise for, but recalling his own exact angry words felt like an unnecessary effort.

Enjolras’s traitorous brain was convinced, just for a second, that it wasn’t worth the wait. If they were about to part ways anyway, why did it matter? Why make it even more painful? He could simply leave right away, make the jump, be free, go home-

But Enjolras _wanted_ to see Grantaire again. He wanted to say goodbye, to thank him, to- to- Agree on a meeting place for later, possibly.

 _Drown him_ , his brain supplied, and- what?

 _Pull him under. Hold him close, don_ _’t let him go. Make him stay._

Enjolras sat down on dry grass, hugged his knees, rested his forehead against them. No. This wasn’t him. This was ridiculous, childish, it was years of nothing and suddenly _something_ -

And suddenly Grantaire.

There was irony in how Grantaire, of all people, was the one to prove Enjolras right. After two years of evil and _nothing_ , Grantaire had been pushed into his cage, loudly declaring the inherent badness of all things, all the while being living prove that goodness always found a way.

Not the pure, angelic kind of goodness that people tended to crave. Grantaire was filled to the brink with messy, awful goodness that had seen too much of the world to be worn openly. He was so human, so exhausted and intelligent and hurt that Enjolras, on some of his own worst days, had wished he didn’t have to watch him battle with it.

And he was furious _,_ too, at Grantaire. If Enjolras, of all people, had managed to keep his faith alive, to keep his believe in what he’d seen humans to be, namely capable of doing good as much as bad, then how could Grantaire dare to think otherwise? How could he, who felt the sun on his skin every day, who was surrounded with people who loved him like family, could wander where he wanted and had literally seen the world - how could he dare and focus on all that was bad?

Enjolras had never had the actual urge to kill a human before, much less to- whatever his mind was telling him to do to Grantaire. None of his kind _craved_ to hurt or to kill. It was simply a fact of life, a matter of survival. It was also something that Enjolras intended to make his kind question, although that was another topic entirely.

It was completely out of the question that this primal need could be a natural one. His own inability to place where it was coming from made Enjolras's skin crawl and for the very first time, he began to doubt that he'd be able to shake what the Thénardiers had done to him as easily as he'd expected.

But this, too, would pass by the time Enjolras had hit the water, he told himself. He would thank Grantaire, and jump, and heal. He would find Combeferre and Courfeyrac, finally, finally see them again. He just had to sit and wait for Grantaire first.

But, by God, Enjolras was _aching_. His muscles, no, his bones had a deep-set ache in them that he had never consciously allowed himself to ponder over before. Every part of him was hurting, from the points where his hair grew out of his head down to the webs between his toes. He was wary, Enjolras realised. He felt old, and he felt done, and he was so close to where he needed to be that adrenaline was starting to make way for exhaustion.

His heart was aching as well. For the water, and for Grantaire, and Enjolras knew that he could only ever have one of the two. No- that he could only ever have the former.

All this time his family had been right, and wasn’t that the funniest part?

Because Enjolras couldn’t just pull him under and keep him like a shiny conch he’d found, no matter what his mind was urging him to do. He was neither a child nor an animal. And most importantly, Grantaire was still nowhere near, although he should have taken his flight at the same time as Enjolras and must have had no issues navigating through the familiar forests.

So, the ocean it was, and when had that ever not been the case? It was true that Enjolras used to long for the land back when he almost only knew the sea. That curious longing he’d felt back then, though, was laughable compared to the bare need that had been slowly consuming him for the last few years for the relieve of water cradling him.

Again, Enjolras began to wonder what the point was in waiting, but it only took him a second to remember. He needed to see the moment in Grantaire’s face when the realisation hit him. That Enjolras had been right, that Grantaire had been wrong, that he had been stupid not to give in to hope. That his cynicism had been pointless, and his drinking. Grantaire would realise, and Enjolras would watch him, and for the first time since they’d known each other, they would both be free.

So, Enjolras kept sitting, kept listening to the waves, kept breathing, kept waiting.

***

Enjolras had let the waves lull him into a state of vaguely agonising hypnosis when he first heard footsteps in the forest behind him, not more than half a kilometre away, embarrassingly much later than he _should_ have become aware of them.

The relieve - Grantaire, _finally_ \- only lasted for a second before the notion overtook Enjolras that something was wrong. There were two pairs of footsteps, no, three, four- It would have been easier to tell if the wind wasn’t blowing from the sea towards the land. It was impossible to focus on any smell but that of salt water. Grantaire hadn’t brought his friends, had he? There was no necessity for them to get involved any more than- no, he wouldn’t-

Enjolras, deciding quickly as the sounds grew nearer, stood and approached the cliff. He positioned himself ready to jump, half a foot over the edge, prepared to escape any threat that could possibly come his way.

He wouldn't even have to look down before he jumped; the cliffs angrily jutting out of the water below posed no threat to Enjolras. He had been gone for what felt like a lifetime, but the sea couldn't have forgotten that he was one of its kind. It would never harm him.

And so he waited.

Thénardier was the first to break through the bushes, and Enjolras would have jumped if, at the same time, his sense of smell hadn’t finally allowed anything that didn’t mean freedom.

For right after, Montparnasse and a man Enjolras recognised as the guard Beaumont broke through the bushes, another figure between the two men. Enjolras wasn’t sure he could have identified Grantaire if he hadn’t been able to recognise his scent from a thousand men (still almost indistinguishable from the sea, but also carrying something else entirely).

He tried to take in all of Grantaire’s injuries in the matter of a second, but it was impossible to tell through all the blood if any were potentially fatal. Enjolras’s entire body shuddered with the effort of not shifting his weight and simply letting himself fall to freedom. Like every day for almost three years, he breathed and told himself that it had time, he could wait, he would simply focus on surviving the next five seconds. There was no reason to act irrationally; the inevitability of freedom would not fade.

For the first time, Enjolras, theoretically, had the upper hand over Thénardier. He could have killed him with a single word if he’d wanted. And unbelievably, disgustingly, he used his freedom of choice to stay, wait, watch.

Enjolras forbid himself from looking at Grantaire again until he had solved this situation. He just had to-

“I can’t believe he told the truth,” said Thénardier.

Montparnasse laughed. Him and Beaumont threw Grantaire before them.

He hit the ground without resistance.

“I can,” said Montparnasse and gripped into blood-matted hair, pulling Grantaire up on his knees by nothing but his head.

Enjolras refused to look.

He wanted to kill them all. He wanted to make them jump and watch their disgusting bodies be ripped into pieces on the cliffs.

But the guard was aiming a rifle at Grantaire’s form, who stayed unmoving except for heaving breaths that were thankfully still leaving his body.

It was only then that Enjolras realised: They must have understood.

They _knew_.

All attempts at torture before had been intended for an animal, for a monstrous creature, but they had learnt, somehow. They had learnt that a gun trained at Enjolras was much less effective than a gun held to Grantaire’s temple.

“You’re being so nice and quiet,” said Montparnasse, smiling at Enjolras. “If we’d known all it would take to make you this compliant would be to find you a pet, everything could have been so much easier.”

Enjolras kept silent. His mind was occupied, trying to run through every possible solution it could come up with, frantic to find one that would have both him and Grantaire come out of this alive. And until he’d found then he didn’t dare make a single move, least of all open his mouth, in case it could trigger a nervous twitch from Beaumont with his darting gaze.

Did they even know he could speak without his Song? Grantaire hadn’t.

“Isn’t that right,” said Montparnasse, smile growing wider. “Nice and silent now. We wouldn’t want to cause any accidents, would we?”

He could make them all jump, of course. He could make them eat their own flesh if he so chose; he certainly felt powerful enough now.

But there was no guarantee that Beaumont wouldn’t pull the trigger at the first sound he’d hear, and more importantly, there was no way to spare Grantaire from the Song.

“I think what is going to happen now should be clear,” said Thénardier and pulled Enjolras’s mask from his jacket.

Enjolras’s very soul convulsed at the sight.

 _Go go go_ , whispered the sea behind Enjolras.

His desperate mind, empty of perfect solutions, started rifling through all possible courses of action that would have Grantaire come out of this alive and free even if Enjolras didn’t.

“Come on now,” said Montparnasse. “This doesn’t have to end badly for either of us, does it?”

 _Run_ , whispered the sea. _Enjolras. Run_.

For the first time, Enjolras allowed himself to glance at Grantaire. He wasn’t unmoving anymore; his lips were forming words with almost no breath at all, so silently that none but Enjolras could hear.

_Go. Just run._

Thénardier threw the mask into the grass before Enjolras’s feet. One of them was still dangling over the edge.

“Be a good boy,” said Montparnasse, ironically acknowledging for the first time that Enjolras, after all, might just be a person.

 _Runrunrunrunrunrunrunrun_ -

Possibly, Enjolras thought, Grantaire had been the one who’d been right all this time.

He took a step forward, away from the cliff. He picked up the mask and straightened up again.

It was then, when Enjolras made to lift the mask to his face, that the Songs behind him began.

Enjolras was prepared to hear the shot go off before he had even remotely grasped the situation. Only when he realised that the rifle hadn’t gone off did he also note that it wasn’t actually _him_ who was Singing.

But he recognised the voices of those who were.

Combeferre and Courfeyrac, with more force than Enjolras had ever heard them put into their Songs, were luring everyone in a radius of _miles_ to come join them in the ocean.

Enjolras opened his eyes, having pressed them shut in anticipation.

All three men, Montparnasse, Thénardier and Beaumont, wore an expression Enjolras was only too familiar with. Their faces were completely blank, yet their eyes so full of plain adoration, of love and longing, that Enjolras wanted to rip the skin off their heads.

Only Grantaire-

Grantaire was _smiling_.

He looked directly at Enjolras, his face a horrible wreck of blood split open by a manic grin, and broke free from the loosened hold of Montparnasse’s fingers.

Grantaire had gone over the edge before Enjolras could grasp what was happening. A moment later, he was sailing through the air after him.

It was only when Grantaire’s limp body hit the stone beside him, ripping their grasp apart, that Enjolras realised Grantaire had clutched his hand on his way over the edge. He’d pulled him down to Grantaire’s own demise, and to Enjolras’s freedom.

Enjolras, just next to the cliff jutting out of the water, was safely caught by the cold waves. He'd known they would never hurt him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for relatively non-explicit depictions of violence and blood. also a reminder to check the tags in case you're worried where this is leading, because I didn't actually plan to cut the chapter at this point ,,,
> 
> to absolutely no one's surprise but my own, everything is escalating again and I basically gave up trying to decide on a total chapter count. 16? 17? who even knows at this point.
> 
> thank you!


	15. Down to Meet Apollo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> see the end notes for chapter-specific content warnings!
> 
> this chapter got a bit out of hand length-wise, and I've literally never been less sure about any part of this story. so honest feedback is appreciated more than ever! I'm terrified! help!

_Outrunning karma that boy_  
_Can't run no farther it's the_  
_Last days of Sparta follow_  
_him down to meet Apollo_

\- "Outrunning Karma" by Alec Benjamin

* * *

It was an entirely irrational feeling, Enjolras knew. Utterly subjective. He had enough reason to despise the Thénardiers, far more than enough, and still.

And _still-_ He already knew that this was the thing he would be least likely to ever forgive them - taking away this moment from him.

It was supposed to be a moment of utter triumph, of liberation as he was cradled by the waves around him. Enjolras hadn’t allowed himself to ever get too carried away with his fantasies - it had always been too important to stay focused on the present - but this was the one scene he’d allowed himself to play out in his head, time and time again, to give himself something to strive and hope for.

And now, the feeling of finally getting enough air again after years of slowly suffocating as he finally returned home, the ocean with its freezing cold that melted into his bones, welcoming him

His gills opening up for the first time in years, at first painfully, then as if they’d never been condemned to uselessness

Miles and miles and miles of his surroundings opening up to his senses as he was finally back where he was made to function

All of it underlaid with the horrible and familiar sound of his family calling out -

Enjolras couldn't allow himself to pay attention to any of it.

Instead, he was filled with the kind of full-bodied all-consuming panic he hadn’t been able to afford in years. Enjolras tried to orient himself for a moment before he remembered that his senses already knew all there was to know, finally able to do what they were made for, and he only needed to reach out a hand to take a hold of Grantaire’s wrist.

Enjolras was dimly aware of the three other bodies that were hitting the water, one after the other - in Thénardier’s case, the stone -, but he only needed a second to remember that there was no need to kill them. Combeferre and Courfeyrac would know what to do.

Enjolras tried not to look at Grantaire, but it was no use- he could smell, _taste_ the blood. He could feel his limp body giving no resistance as he pulled him away from the cliffs.

He could hear no heartbeat.

Enjolras knew that he should have let go. The sensible course of action would have been to let go his grasp, flee towards the open sea and never look back.

But Enjolras had spent the last three years suppressing every single one of his urges, every twitch of his eye, every single one of his natural instincts.

He’d been so close to freedom, to being exempt of all authority but that of the sea- able to do whatever he wanted, to go where he liked, to laugh, to-

Enjolras couldn’t let go now. He couldn’t.

And so, entirely futilely, he didn’t. Enjolras pulled Grantaire away from the danger of the waves that threatened to throw his body against stone, as if it made a difference, out into the open sea. He grasped Grantaire’s other arm, too, and followed the conjoined Song of Combeferre and Courfeyrac out into a freedom that had entirely stopped feeling like such.

Of the joy he’d imagined for the last months and months and months that he would feel at swimming again, using all his muscles exactly for what they had been intended, Enjolras felt nothing.

Grantaire would have told him that it'd been his own mistake for being so sure it would all turn out fine. He’d been so full of determination, so unwilling to give in to the world the Thénardiers had been constructing around him that he’d given himself too much hope.

As he had this thought a strong unexpected current twisted Grantaire’s body out of Enjolras’s grasp. It only took him a few moments to regain his hold, but Enjolras decided not to take any more chances and wrapped his entire body around Grantaire’s sinking one, just letting it happen, letting them hit the soft sandy ground, all of his senses filled with _Grantaire, Grantaire, Grantaire_ , and the sickly-sweet scent of death.

It wasn’t that he didn’t take notice of Combeferre and Courfeyrac swimming up, their concerned voices, them attempting to pull him away before finally giving up. It was just that Enjolras had finally allowed himself to give in to exhaustion.

Just this time, Grantaire might possibly have been right. Enjolras knew this, but it didn’t mean he was able to let go.

And so he didn’t.

***

When Grantaire came to, he was surrounded by red and gold.

 _I have died_ , he thought, unsurprised by this turn of events, if a little disappointed by the timing.

 _Or have I?,_ thought Grantaire after another moment, noting that nothing else was happening - no voice was speaking to him, no gate opening.

 _Well, I sure am not breathing_ , he thought. But it wasn’t quite the truth - although his mouth and nose were closed off, he could feel the soothing expand-contract of breath throughout his body.

_My body?_

With this realisation - that Grantaire did, in fact, still seem to possess a body - all his other senses came crashing down onto him in the fraction of a second with an intensity he had never felt before.

Curiously enough, Grantaire was left taking in all the new impressions surrounding him in the shrewdest order possible:

First, he realised that there were two figures hovering close by, waiting, watching.

Then, he recognised what was wrapped around him like tendrils, the red and gold filling his vision, to be Enjolras.

It was only then, right when Enjolras pulled back just enough to meet Grantaire’s eyes, that he fully comprehended that he was underwater.

Immediately, stupidly, he opened his mouth in the world’s worst-timed reflex and would have breathed in a deep lungful of water if it hadn’t been for Enjolras’s webbed, red fingers that wrapped around his jaw, closing it shut. Another hand around the back of his neck held Grantaire’s head in place.

Enjolras’s eyes were more awake than Grantaire had ever seen them, his stare so intense that he tried to escape the clutch around his head just to flee this feeling of being utterly exposed.

But Enjolras’s grasp was unrelenting, and Grantaire’s struggle only served to have Enjolras close his fingers around his nose as well.

 _He_ _’s drowning me_ , thought Grantaire and would have laughed out loud if he could have. Months ago, before he’d ever properly spoken to Enjolras, he’d told his friends that this was exactly what was bound to happen.

“We would all be dead minutes after freeing him,” he’d said. “There is no way after all these years that he wouldn’t use the earliest opportunity to take down any- and everyone who was in any way affiliated with this _circus_.” It’d been a long time since Grantaire had expected to be right about this.

There was no anger in Enjolras’s expression. He looked - surprised, but also serene. His hair, which Grantaire had spent so many hours tracing on the page before him, formed a golden halo around his head. For a moment, Grantaire was convinced he must have died after all.

“Look at me,” said Enjolras, although his lips somehow remained unmoving. “Look at me. You’re fine. There is no need to breathe.”

Grantaire realised he was holding Enjolras’s wrists, as if he’d meant to fight and decided against it.

Was this what a siren’s Song felt like?

Grantaire tried to tug at Enjolras’s grasp, but couldn’t manage to put any real force behind it. He also remembered that he could, in fact, close his eyes, but looking away from Enjolras in this very moment seemed physically impossible.

“I’m sorry,” said Enjolras. “I’m sorry. We can’t go to the surface. We don’t know who might be looking for us.”

He, again, wasn’t using his mouth to form the words. Grantaire grew more convinced by the second that this, finally, was Enjolras’s Song. This _feeling_ of words rather than a human melody.

Grantaire remembered the tug of his Song during the innumerable shows, how it’d been a feeling deep in his bones. But he also remembered watching Enjolras speak or possibly sing to the poor man who later shot himself from the agony of not being allowed to be near him again.

Looking at Enjolras, his giant, dark eyes that pleaded with him to stay still and just let it happen, the red glow emanating from his form, Grantaire realised that there was no Song needed for him to follow whatever Enjolras asked of him.

He’d meant it when he’d said that he believed in him. If Enjolras asked him to stay still under his hands and to drown, that is what Grantaire would do.

He loosened his grasp, but he refused to close his eyes.

“Good,” said Enjolras without sound. “Relax. You are safe, you are getting enough oxygen. Focus on me.”

And wasn’t that last part just redundant? When had been the last time that Grantaire had focused on anything that wasn’t Enjolras?

Eventually, it was that which had thrown him into panic in the first place that took Grantaire out of it: the current of the water surrounding them rocked him into a state of something akin to calmness, closer to numbness.

It came to a point when Grantaire, although he remained unable to take his eyes off of Enjolras’s, started paying attention to all the information his senses were carrying towards him:

He could feel the presence of the other figures he’d noticed before, although they had neither come closer nor swam away; additionally, there were still some traces of other bodies, and of death, which Grantaire chose not to think about further.

“There you go,” said Enjolras. “You’re fine.”

And Grantaire began to believe that this might be true. After however many minutes he’d been down here, his lungs had stopped trying to contract and made no sign of even starting a burn - it was like he had no need for them.

He could _hear_ their position in the water. They weren’t more than a mile away from the coast, which explained Enjolras’s caution.

Enjolras, who was still _alive_. It had taken Grantaire until now to realise that it had _worked_. It was a struggle to remember what exactly, but eventually, he remembered the cliff, the Songs, Thénardier’s voice saying it had been Grantaire who’d told them where to find Enjolras-

Again, although this time it was intentional, Grantaire took hold of Enjolras’s wrists in an attempt to make him let go - he had to _tell_ Enjolras, he just had to _know_.

He loosened his grip, possibly sensing that Grantaire had calmed down. As soon as he opened his mouth in an attempt to somehow speak, though, Enjolras had clasped it shut again.

“Stop that,” said Enjolras, frowning.

 _Jesus Christ, just let me tell you something,_ thought Grantaire.

“Then just say it,” said Enjolras. “Just tell me.” But still, he didn’t let go.

By this point, Grantaire was almost entirely convinced that he had very simply died. This was death, or the afterlife, or whatever came in between; Enjolras had either been sent to help him along his journey from one world to the next or he was a figment of Grantaire’s imagination. So this really didn’t surprise him as much as it maybe should have.

It was like gaining another sense - like finding a new layer in his mind he had never noticed before. He was thinking, and then he wanted to be speaking, and then he was doing something in between the two - thinking that felt _loud_.

“It wasn’t me,” he said, although Enjolras hadn’t yet let go. “I didn’t tell them. Éponine did. They found my jacket, and then- my drawings- She had to. I didn’t tell them. I wouldn’t have-”

“I know,” said Enjolras, although Grantaire was sure that he didn’t.

“No, this is the truth. I wouldn’t have talked- neither would Éponine, but Azelma, her sister, they told her they would-”

“I know,” said Enjolras again. “Everything is all right, I believe you.”

“No, stop trying to soothe me,” said Grantaire, and finally pulled Enjolras’s hands away for good. It was only when he moved backwards, trying to get space between them, that he realised Enjolras’s legs had still been wrapped around his middle.

He let go and sat back in the sand across Grantaire, glowing red-and-gold in the dark water that, he knew, should have been impossible to see through.

Grantaire, uselessly underwater, blinked once, and again, before it occurred to him what was so wrong about this sight.

Enjolras, his scales, his webs, weren’t supposed to be _red_. As long as Grantaire had known him they had been of a pale orange, almost vanishing against his skin.

But there wasn’t a single doubt that this, the brightest red Grantaire had ever seen, was how Enjolras was _supposed_ to be. “I look awful,” Enjolras had said when he’d seen the drawings of himself. Even without colour he’d recognised how much he must have changed. Years of captivity had worn away at him more than he had ever let shown, until now, finally, the ocean was welcoming him back into his home.

“You’re beautiful,” said Grantaire, feeling the grin of utter relief on his own face, tasting the salty water with it.

Enjolras, impossibly, looked rather taken aback, his eyes big as he stared at Grantaire. As if he’d ever been anything but blunt with his opinions. As if Enjolras had ever been anything but radiant, even before. He looked down at his fingers for just a second before resuming his incredulous stare. The bright scales that had only ever shown where they climbed up his neck seemed to glow through the threadbare fabric now, covering most of Enjolras’s upper body.

“You are,” said Enjolras, before faltering for the very first time since Grantaire could remember.

Grantaire rolled his eyes. “No need to-,” he started, looked down at his own form, and stopped as well.

A part of him had realised by now that this was the only possible explanation. This was nothing but the last piece of a puzzle he should already have figured out; and yet, the sight of green webs on his hands, their colour climbing up his fingers before fading into the skin, left Grantaire dumbstruck.

He couldn’t stop staring. He tried waving his hand around a bit, feeling how the fine skin gave him more leverage against the water. Then, acting on nothing but instinct, he reached up and touched his neck, right by his ears, immediately recoiling at the new tenderness of the skin there. Instead, he held his palm right next to the spot, feeling how water got gently sucked in and out.

He’d never even realised that Enjolras must have had gills, but looking back over at the other, they were indeed barely visible, skin-coloured and hidden well behind his ears and under strands of hair that never stopped swirling around his head.

“So I am,” said Grantaire, lowering his hand.

Slowly, a grin split Enjolras’s face in two. For the first time in a long while Grantaire was overwhelmed by how _young_ he looked. “You were dead,” said Enjolras, still looking like he had just been told a biting letter of his had given cause for a change of legislation. “You were dead, and now you’re not.”

Grantaire nodded. “I suppose,” he said, “My heroic death was unjust enough for the sea to care about it.”

“I would call it reckless rather than heroic,” said Enjolras. “Stupid, most of all.”

“It obviously worked out perfectly, though, didn’t it?”, said Grantaire.

He wasn’t even trying to be annoying. It was just that his heart was beating its way into his throat, pumping one thought through his limbs: _We did it_.

“Perfectly?”, said Enjolras, frowning in distaste. “You _died_ , Grantaire. And now you’re alive, but- Your family, your friends, how will you even let them know you are well? How will you- We will have to leave this place behind, preferably this continent.”

As he was speaking, Enjolras lifted himself off the ground with the movement of his gestures, floating over Grantaire, rising and sinking with his motions, making no sign that he was aware of what he was doing. It reminded Grantaire of the dozens of times he had sat perched on his desk, watching Enjolras pace back and forth in that damned wagon as he ranted about anything and everything.

Enjolras concluded with a final burst of distress, “You cannot _draw_ _underwater, Grantaire._ _”_

“Neither can you read, but you managed to do quite a lot of that as far as I’m aware,” said Grantaire. “And I think you might be mistaking me for an artist. I am not like Jehan, I draw merely as way of diversion. If anything, I’m sorry that this means you remain stuck with me for longer than was planned.”

Enjolras, ever so slowly, sank back down to the sandy ground as he just blinked at Grantaire for a few seconds. “Is that how you thought of,” he said, gesturing between them, “Of this?”

Grantaire shrugged. “It appears to me you never had much of a choice about having me around.”

“Jesus Christ,” said Enjolras. “When have I ever given the impression that I don’t value your company?”

“It’s not-,” said Grantaire, and sighed. He hated how much he sounded like a child searching for validation. “I just assumed you would seek to leave behind all that would remind you of those years.”

“I don’t aim to forget anything of what happened,” said Enjolras. “But especially not the single _good_ thing that came of this.”

Even in the cold of the ocean, Grantaire’s face felt like it was burning up with hot shame. This wasn't where he wanted this to go - he hadn’t been attempting to make Enjolras insist on this half-truth to a point that felt irrevocable.

He hadn’t meant to be self-deprecating at all, but it was where his awful mind always ended up, leaving Grantaire unable to even look at Enjolras. And now he had talked himself into a corner: if he were to accept this consolation, he would force Enjolras to keep playing the part of this person who was happy to quite literally keep hauling his trauma around with him. If he kept on repeating that Enjolras needn’t pretend, however, he would only force him to insist further and further on this tale.

“Grantaire,” said Enjolras, and to make him look up, _“Grantaire_. Be quiet.”

“But I wasn’t speaking,” said Grantaire, although he wasn’t so sure. This new, although instinctive, way of communication was so close to how it felt to think that he could have accidentally been unloading his entire thought process onto Enjolras.

“I could practically watch you think yourself into misery,” said Enjolras. He lifted himself from his spot again, although this time intentionally, floating closer to Grantaire. “Let me ask you this: have you ever known me to purposefully speak what isn’t true? Or to ever keep something from you in order to protect your feelings, or to keep your goodwill?”

It was still hard to look directly at Enjolras, but it would have been harder to avert his gaze. “God, no, but-”

“Then why would you believe that this was what I was doing now? Listen to me. _I_ asked you to come meet me before our ways would have been parted. To offer an apology, which I still owe you, but also because I couldn’t accept that moment to have been the last time we would ever have met. It would have killed me to only have memories of you inside _there_. And I am not happy about the way everything turned out, far from it. But standing up on that cliff, I wasn’t worrying over how I could still be caught, but how I would soon have to part from you.”

Grantaire wasn’t sure if Enjolras was fully aware of how close he’d gotten, causing him to start leaning back on instinct until he stopped himself. They were free, now; there was no need for him to stay on his side of the carriage in an attempt to offer Enjolras the space he was denied.

“I never even expected to live to this age,” said Grantaire, possibly startled to honestly by their still growing proximity. “And all I ever wanted was to see the world, and, I admit, to be around the people I consider family.”

Enjolras, hovering practically above Grantaire, seemed lost about what point he was working towards.

“What I am saying,” said Grantaire, “Is that this is probably the best possible situation I could have found myself in. I would have gone to sea again after this, anyhow, and _this_ ,” he gestured down at himself, “Just means I can skip the search for a ship that would take me. And my family- well, I would have had to avoid this town for at least the next few months, anyway. I will find some way to contact them.”

For just this moment, Grantaire refused to think about how they had killed Éponine’s father. He knew he didn’t regret it, and also that it hadn't directly been him that pushed Thénardier off that cliff, although he felt it was enough that he would have been willing to do so. He also knew, however, that Éponine’s feelings about her parents, especially in light of her sister, were complicated at best.

The gills at his neck flared in what Grantaire assumed was a siren’s equivalent of a sigh, obviously recognising his attempts at changing the topic.

“What do I have to do,” said Enjolras, “To have you believe me when I say I would _choose_ your company? Because that is what I am doing. I would be only too willing to use my newfound freedom of choice to send you away if I wished to do so. You're not stupid; you could figure out how to survive like this.”

“It’s fine,” said Grantaire, shaking his head. “I believe you, I do.”

But of course, he did not.

And of course, Enjolras frowned because he knew he was lying.

“I can’t-,” he started, before cutting himself off with lips pressed together, thinking. Then, face determined, Enjolras took hold of Grantaire’s jaw in a movement that was nothing like his desperate grip before.

Grantaire felt like he was frozen in place in the wake of Enjolras’s fingertips, as cold as the ocean surrounding them but still leaving burning traces behind on Grantaire’s jawline, his cheek, his temple. Without realising, Grantaire had closed his eyes, trying to cope with what was happening by at least taking one of his overloaded senses away.

He couldn’t resist opening them up again as soon as he realised what he was doing, though, which proved a startling choice as the sight that greeted him was Enjolras’s face, hovering barely a few inches away from his own, his dark, bright eyes meeting his.

For a second, Enjolras stopped moving entirely. His fingertips stayed in place, one resting just at the outer corner of Grantaire’s mouth, and this was it, this would be his downfall, he was dying, he must have already died.

“Are you all right,” said Enjolras, and Grantaire wanted to scream with laughter. Was he _all right_.

He nodded and immediately wasn’t sure if he’d only imagined the movement or actually done it. “I am- yes, I-,” he said, discovering that he was still very much able to stumble over his words, even when he wasn't using his mouth.

Grantaire sent a prayer of thanks to all the deities he knew and didn’t believe in when Enjolras seemed to deem this a sufficient sign of affirmation.

Later, Grantaire would be absolutely convinced that he’d seen Enjolras’s eyes flash red the very moment before he closed them and their lips met. Because Grantaire continuously possessed no sense of self-preservation, he didn’t think of it as threatening; it reminded him of the very early days when he'd watched Enjolras in his intensity and thought that his eyes _should_ have been red.

This was no pity. This was intention.

And so, for the first time in this impossible conversation, Grantaire allowed himself no doubt. He just felt lips brush against his, a familiar sensation made alien both by the unlikeliness of it all and their surroundings.

The water made it impossible to taste anything other than the salt, but it also created the sensation of total entanglement- of never _not_ touching, because the water was touching them both.

Christ, Grantaire would have gone back yet again to believing he’d died, hadn’t it been for the realisation that what awaited him after death couldn’t possibly be _this_. This was neither heaven nor sin, Enjolras wrapping his legs around him like before, the soft brushes of his lips against his own, and his cheek, and his neck- Grantaire’s own fingers finally, after almost a year, bold enough to dare and sink into Enjolras’s curls, which weren’t soft as much as lighter than air in the way they slid through Grantaire’s fingers- God almighty, he thought, how in the world am I _allowed_ -

“I cannot believe that all this time while we were searching for him, Enjolras was off finding himself a husband.”

Grantaire had apparently set out a record of the number of ways he could demonstrate his lacking self-preservation, because for a long few seconds, even after Enjolras had broken loose from him, although his hand was still holding onto his collar, he refused to open his eyes.

“He’s not-,” said Enjolras. Grantaire could sense his smile. “We’re not married.”

Finally, Grantaire looked. What he was sure were the two figures that had lingered around here even before had come close and were letting themselves sink down to be level with them.

As soon as Grantaire laid eyes on the two sirens, his brain supplied the information he’d lacked: Combeferre and Courfeyrac. This was Enjolras’s family, and those who had finally decided on Enjolras’s freedom, killing Grantaire in the process, if unintentionally.

They wore no clothes, which was nothing Grantaire had ever thought about before and seemed painfully obvious now. _Of course_ these underwater creatures _wore no clothes_. Immediately, he wondered how he ever could have found the velvet jacket Enjolras had been forced to wear for the shows beautiful on him - it had looked utterly ridiculous. These sirens had nothing of the awkwardness Grantaire tended to associate with the naked human form; they were clearly meant to exist just like this.

The taller one of the two had scales the colour of the calmest blue Grantaire could have imagined, his arms crossed in front of his chest, an amused smile on his face. The other, standing out in the dark water almost as much as Enjolras, had the colour of sunflower petals and only his grin seemed to attempt to outshine his hue.

Enjolras finally let go of his collar and as Grantaire turned his head, he was greeted by the most stunning sight he would ever be blessed with: Enjolras, his face lit up with absolutely nothing but utter joy.

He made a move towards the two others, who immediately pulled Enjolras into their embrace.

Grantaire instinctively averted his gaze at their intimacy. For a long time, no one spoke and they simply held onto each other; or Grantaire was simply not on the receiving end of what they were saying. He had yet to figure out the vast majority of the mechanics of his new existence.

“So,” said the blue one at one point. Grantaire looked up at the three of them still unable to stop smiling. “You are sure you’re not Enjolras’s husband?”

“Well,” said Grantaire. “I surely hope not, or I would be worried that he might get angry at you for killing me today.”

“Uh, well,” said the blue one.

“To be fair,” said the yellow one, “You got over that quite fast.”

Grantaire nodded, getting up from where he’d still been perched on the ocean floor, although he felt awkward in his movements compared to the others. “Cannot argue with that,” he said.

He looked at Enjolras’s beaming face, the way his face was so open now, nothing like the guarded expression he’d worn practically the entire time he had known him.

This was _freedom._

“Grantaire,” he said, gesturing to first his blue friend, than the yellow one, “This is Combeferre, and this is Courfeyrac. And this,” he looked at his friends, “Is Grantaire.”

“And if he’s not your husband,” said Courfeyrac, still finding joy in this stupid joke that made Grantaire’s heart beat too fast, “Then what is he?”

Enjolras smiled at Grantaire, and said, “He saved my life.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for: the feeling of drowning and suffocation, death as a concept not as something that actually happens to Grantaire on the long run pls forgive me for that last cliffhanger, suicide mention, nudity?! (this isn't american television but I thought I'd just go ahead and mention it)
> 
> to my giant shame, I'll have to change something in a former chapter for the first time because I fucked up a bit! I completely forgot that Grantaire had to tell Éponine where him and Enjolras were even going for any of this to make sense. whooooops. please forgive me, I'll edit that as soon as I got some sleep
> 
> (aka probably during my seminar about contemporary fiction tomorrow)
> 
> forgive me please if the epilogue takes two weeks to post, life is keeping me busy and this chapter kind of killed me
> 
> thank you!


	16. Epilogue: Breathe

_No one knows what comes after this_  
_But I, I've always hoped that it was you_  
_'Cause you're the one thing I believe in_  
_When I lose faith in all I do_  
_This paradise comes when I close my eyes; it's true_  
_In the darkness I see you_  
_Breathe_

\- "Breathe" by Seafret

* * *

Grantaire had never in his life been happy, or expected to be.

How naive he had been, how arrogant, to assume that he had seen the world. Harbours and water and the same ships over and over again was what he'd seen, and every day in this new life he had been gifted for reasons he would never understand proved to Grantaire that nobody could allow themselves to make such a claim.

Now that Enjolras had no reason anymore to protect either of them, he shared more and more about his childhood and former life and Grantaire couldn’t get enough of it. He learnt every small detail Enjolras remembered about his mother, the line of communication she secretly kept with a woman living alone near the coast, who supplied her with books and news of human society, and about the many hours Enjolras spent talking and learning with his mother.

Grantaire learnt of awe-inspiring sights Enjolras and his friends had come across during their travels, and more often than not, he also got to see them. It seemed as much a stimulant to Enjolras as alcohol when he spoke of a place, detailing its beauty or intrigue until Grantaire practically burned up with desire to witness what was reported to him; Enjolras's eyes would fill up with life, he would take Grantaire's hand and grin, because they could go wherever they pleased. And that is precisely what they did.

Grantaire wanted to laugh, sometimes, at the memory of how he used to go to sea. It seemed ridiculous, really, how desperate humans were to dominate something that they so clearly couldn't. He smiled at his former fears, too; there was plenty to be terrified of in his new life, but none of it would send the same waves of existential panic through him that the prospect of a terrible storm on sea used to.

In the months until the next summer, Grantaire and Enjolras covered more distance than Grantaire had imagined physically possible. His own curiosity at this new life paired with Enjolras's intoxication with new-found freedom meant that they travelled more miles than seemed likely, and more than Combeferre and Courfeyrac were willing to follow.

They did try, at first. The two of them had spent too much time searching for Enjolras to let him out of their eyes easily. More than two years alone they had spent figuring out that Enjolras had gone on land, unwillingly; more months trying to locate him, and then even more patrolling France's coast and anywhere Thénardier's circus could possibly pass.

After a while, though, their new reality seemed to dawn on them: They had time, now, and Enjolras wasn't on his own. There was freedom in this, too. For the first time in years they, too, could do what they wanted, their lives no longer lead by the chase after Enjolras. Nevertheless, they must have realised that Grantaire would be the last person to tempt Enjolras into anything risky, dangerous. And Enjolras himself had changed from when they had last been together.

"It is as if," said Combeferre to Grantaire at one point, "For the very first time, Enjolras realises that he has time, and that he is just a person. He's allowing himself to live, for once. I can’t decide if I am frightened or delighted by this turn of events."

Grantaire, personally, was rather delighted himself, although he understood Combeferre’s worries. It did surprise him, although perhaps it shouldn't have, that it took Enjolras a while to become interested in nearing human civilisation again. On the one hand, Grantaire wouldn't have been surprised if another man with Enjolras's experiences had refused to ever set foot on land again. But he was no other man, and still, he hesitated.

It was a bigger surprise still that Enjolras seemed utterly unwilling to get sick of Grantaire. The issue was not, at this point, that Grantaire believed the other to have lied about wanting him to stay; not after he'd begun to show his affection so openly, so without hesitation. This version of Enjolras, the most genuine he had witnessed yet, had less reason to hold on to such an untruth than ever. But still, Grantaire could not wrap his hand around how, being reminded of what the world had to offer, Enjolras would choose to keep allowing him to tag along.

And it was even more than that: his gentle touch, their kiss, hadn’t just been an attempt to prove that Enjolras was not repulsed by him; it _kept happening_. The literal line carved in between them was gone and with it, seemingly, had vanished Enjolras’s inhibitions: casual touches, physical signs of affection kept catching Grantaire off-guard, no matter how often they occurred.

It was true that this new world below the surface, removed from society and at the same time connected to all that surrounded them, made it so, so easy to be affectionate. It often made more sense to hold onto another by the wrist than to work against the current to stay close. But more often than not, Enjolras decided not to let go even when it would have made sense to do so.

And then there were those touches that were anything but casual: more and more frequently, their debates, which had become somewhat less serious in nature if not less intense, were interrupted at some point by Enjolras growing frustrated and pulling Grantaire in by the neck to cut off whatever argument he was spinning.

Grantaire found it hard to feel embarrassed by how well this worked on him.

Sometimes, Enjolras would keep kissing him, keep his hand in Grantaire’s hair and on his chest and in his neck and around his waist, until suddenly, he wasn’t. It was disorienting and, Grantaire was sure, entirely on purpose, the way Enjolras would suddenly let go entirely as he remembered another point he’d intended to make.

Sometimes, Grantaire could convince Enjolras that it was a much better idea not to let go.

Still, in the beginning, Grantaire remained careful. For a long time, he had been in the habit of giving Enjolras the space he deserved and found it hard to accept that this level of intimacy was truly something he could just have been gifted. What should he have done to deserve such a right?

But Enjolras remained close, remained affectionate, remained smiling more and more through all of it; and at one point, Grantaire realised he would be an idiot to question his luck. And then, months into this second chance at life, Grantaire realised that he had stopped waking up expecting Enjolras to have finally realised his mistake and left without him.

It was with almost a start that he observed how he'd woken up for a while expecting Enjolras to be close. His senses were so superior to how they used to be, now, so tuned to picking up any traces of Enjolras, that it only ever took him a second to make out what nearby place he had wandered off to.

It was ironic, too, how their sleep habits had shifted. Grantaire found that for the first time in a year, he was gifted with a deep, pleasant sleep by both the familiarity and novelty of the surrounding ocean.

Enjolras, on the other hand, used to be able to sleep for any length of time he’d decided, simply by force of will and out of necessity. Now, he could barely make it through a full six hours without jolting awake with a silent start.

Every night, Grantaire pretended that it did not wake him as well, Enjolras's small flinches and the feeling of his distress vibrating through the water. They slept close to another, although not together, at this point. It did not occur to Grantaire that it might have been something Enjolras wished, as he was still both consciously and subconsciously trying to give him space. And Enjolras didn't voice any opposing wishes until a particularly bad night deep in the winter.

They had been travelling fairly close to Europe, something they hadn't done in months, exploring the open ocean and other continents’ coasts instead, which might have offered an explanation for Enjolras's particularly bad nights.

Enjolras had never mentioned his night terrors himself, which was why Grantaire gritted his teeth and kept silent, too. He did well, he thought, who wasn't in the habit of censoring his thoughts, especially in front of Enjolras.

Grantaire carefully observed and resolutely ignored how each night grew shorter for Enjolras. What would he have been able to do, anyway? Every time he jolted awake, he was fast to put more distance between him and Grantaire, spending the rest of his night exploring their surroundings rather than seeking Grantaire’s company.

And then, near France, if still miles and miles away, they had sought shelter for the night in a sort of alcove tugged into the rocky terrain. The environment there was rather bleak, and they were only passing by on their way to Northern Africa, seeking warmer waters.

Maybe that was why, that night, Enjolras seemed more reluctant than usual to give up his sleep as easily, as there wasn’t much else to do. The first time he woke up couldn’t have been more than an hour after they had initially settled down for the night, which was ridiculous even for Enjolras’s current standards. Grantaire was relieved, then, to listen to him stay, his heartbeat slowly calming until he eventually fell asleep again.

It kept happening, though; every hour or two, Grantaire was awaken from his light sleep by Enjolras struggling awake. Each time, though, he seemed to will himself to stay, to calm down, to try again.

It was by the fifth time that Grantaire had finally had enough. His mind was just confused enough by hours of light sleep and deep dreams that he did not stop the urge, when Enjolras woke them both again, to simply reach over around his waist, pull him in and wrap his arms around him.

It was only a moment until Grantaire fully realised his own idiocy. Surely, Enjolras, who always sought the open sea, who had been held captive for so long, would do anything but appreciate being restricted like this.

Grantaire was about to loosen his hold again when he realised that Enjolras had done nothing to resist, to push him away. Instead, after another second, every muscle in his body seemed to relax completely against Grantaire, making his body almost as featherlike in his arms as his curls felt between Grantaire’s fingers. Enjolras buried his face deeper into Grantaire’s neck, mindful of his gills, reminding him of that moment a life ago when Enjolras had been drawn to the ocean’s smell.

Only this was so much better: this was no act of desperation, Enjolras wasn’t seeking a reminder of his home. He was seeking Grantaire, Grantaire, _Grantaire_. How different it felt to have someone choose to envelop themselves in you when you weren’t the only choice; how different it felt that Enjolras had the freedom to leave, and every single moment, he chose to stay; how different it felt to be sober and alert through it all, giving yourself no chance of misinterpretation, no risk of losing the memory of what was important.

Enjolras pushed water through his gills in a sigh and said, in the inaudible way that had easily become natural to Grantaire, “You know – you are still warmer than you’re supposed to be.” And he wrapped his arms further around him, drawing them impossibly closer.

“That sounds far from healthy,” said Grantaire.

“It might only feel that way to me,” said Enjolras. He sighed again. “I apologise for waking you.”

“That is what you are worried about?”, said Grantaire.

He rarely wished to return to land for any other reason than to reunite with his friends. In moments like these, though, his fingers gliding through Enjolras’s curls and barely feeling them, he longed for a chance to bring to paper all the newly acquired knowledge of this small obsession of his.

Grantaire sighed, too. “Don’t you know by now that I would trade any amount of peaceful nights for this? If it were up to me, we would give up all our plans and remain where we are for the next few winters.”

He could feel Enjolras’s lips curl into a small smile against his own skin and almost shuddered with pure joy at the sensation.

“It might not be as hard to convince me as you expect,” said Enjolras.

Grantaire closed his eyes. What had he done to deserve _any of this_?

“Then let’s stay,” he said. “Let’s stay.”

And because they could, they did. If not for the next few winters, they stayed at least for the rest of the long night and most of the day. They were deep enough under the surface that almost no daylight reached them, and Grantaire had never felt more like this new life was a dream than he did then: floating on light sleep for hours, noting all the points that connected their bodies, observing with relief how Enjolras seemed to sleep through the entirety of it.

There were no words for this feeling: that Grantaire might just be _enough_. That his presence alone could convince Enjolras he was safe in this moment, that he could possibly be experiencing the same absolute contentment as Grantaire, this sensation he’d never felt before, just from their closeness.

While there came a moment when they separated and went on with their journey, there came no night after this where they slept not wrapped up in each other. It didn’t heal Enjolras’s night terrors, but it helped, and it made Grantaire feel an indescribable warmth in his chest when, instead of putting distance between them, Enjolras pressed a bit closer every time he woke up.

Grantaire, impossibly, felt _content_. And content was how he spent their winter, and spring, although the seasons had never played a smaller role in Grantaire’s life: they saw reefs so beautiful it made no sense, creatures deep in the ocean no human had seen before, treasures and sunken ships that filled Grantaire with an equal sense of awe and horror.

More than once, searching through the remains of sunken ships out of curiosity rather than greed they came across single bottles or full crates or stocked rooms of rum; and each time, Enjolras pointedly did not look at Grantaire.

Each time, he resisted the temptation.

Enjolras seemed pleased, although Grantaire felt more credit was given to him than he deserved: it was not hard to decide against reaching for a bottle. In his former life, it had never once felt like he’d _needed_ to drink: it had been something that had been pleasurable, or an escape, a good excuse, more convenient than not. It was only now, in this body he had been given, that Grantaire fully realised the bare necessity his old one had developed for intoxication.

It frightened him as much as it sobered Grantaire, quite literally, to realise the chance he had been given. He had seen before what it was like when other men at sea ran out of rum on a particularly difficult journey, back when he hadn’t yet had the need for it himself. He had also seen ships land at harbours who had been short on anything to drink at all a while ago, and Grantaire could not have told which of the two had been more desperate.

However, this new body presented itself like one that had never even tasted a drop of alcohol. It seemed impossible that Grantaire, who had barely gone a week without drink since he’d been a child hiding away in the cellar with a decidedly-not-crying-Éponine, would even survive this sudden change in lifestyles; let alone that he would take weeks to even realise what had changed.

So, the sight of rum did not tempt as much as it frightened Grantaire. There was no way to tell what would happen if he were to pick up the habit again and there was no way he would try to find out.

All in all, it was nothing but another of the many gifts Grantaire tried not to question, the way he could simply swim past any old bottles they found, and how happy it made Enjolras to see this.

***

It did not elude Grantaire how pointedly Enjolras did _not_ avoid the topic of their inevitable return to France. Every so often he would bring it up, and every time, Grantaire was hyperaware of how the other spoke in the first-person plural: We will return in the summer. We will find a way to contact your friends. We will meet them somewhere safe. We will set up a system to meet them on the regular.

The reality was, however, that by the time spring started to turn into summer around Northern Europe, they had not once set foot on land. The last time Grantaire had left the water had been when he’d hidden his clothes just a few miles from his hometown; the last time Enjolras’s feet had touched the land had been when he’d stood up on that cliff, and Grantaire had pulled him over the edge with him.

There had been no need to leave the ocean, for one. It was safe, and it was home to Enjolras and maybe, slowly, also to Grantaire. He found, too, that it was richer than the land in every possible way.

“I will need to thank Jehan,” said Enjolras one morning. “For lending me his books. Please remind me if I forget.”

Grantaire, only just awoken, watched Enjolras stretch his limbs. He had gained weight in the last few months in fat and muscle, and colouring of both his skin and scales. Enjolras looked as healthy as Grantaire hadn’t been able to imagine would be possible just a year ago.

“You know,” said Grantaire, “That there is no need for you to go with me.”

Enjolras turned to look at him, his brow furrowed in genuine confusion. “Of course I do. And why would I not?”

Grantaire shrugged, as if he hadn’t been thinking this over for weeks. “There is nothing I could not relate for you. I just wanted to remind you that you are free to do what you wish. What you genuinely wish, I mean, and not what you think you are obligated.”

“I do genuinely wish to finally meet your friends,” said Enjolras, although his gaze was no longer directed at Grantaire.

“There will be time for that,” said Grantaire. “You know we will arrange a next meeting already.”

“Why are you trying to convince me not to go?”, said Enjolras, finally looking up at Grantaire.

He already knew, and they were both aware.

“You seem rather uncomfortable with the thought of returning to land, especially France,” said Grantaire. “And since there truly is no pressing matters to-“

Enjolras laughed. “It would take a lot more than discomfort to prevent me from doing what I need to do, and you know it.”

“But that’s my point,” said Grantaire. “You don’t need to do anything, we are entirely free of obligation. This might sound laughable, coming from me. But there is a point to be made about how it is entirely reasonable to choose comfort over discomfort, sometimes.”

Enjolras looked at him for a long while before simply nodding.

He stopped talking about France quite as obsessively.

***

Combeferre and Courfeyrac had made connections with very few selected humans through their search for Enjolras that came to their aid again, now.

It was close to a miracle, Grantaire thought, how Enjolras always found his way back to his family. It was so natural to them to find another, so easy to communicate through dozens of miles of distance, that Grantaire could barely imagine how impossibly terrifying it must have been for Combeferre and Courfeyrac to go for almost three years without even a sign from Enjolras.

Through Combeferre’s and Courfeyrac’s connections, they sent the most cryptically-worded letter that had ever been written to every address Grantaire remembered where his friends could currently be living: they sent it to Bossuet and Joly and Musichetta in Paris, of course, but also to Marius’s old home in Paris, Gibelotte with a note to give it to whoever of their friends might be biding their time in her pub, to the several apartments Jehan had occupied over the years, and even to Marius’s family home.

In short, there was no chance that _none_ of them would receive their message about where and when to meet in the coming July.

When the day finally came, all four of them had travelled to France’s Northern coast together, and Enjolras had yet to make the decision if he would accompany Grantaire. Ever since they had discussed the topic, he seemed a lot less forceful towards himself about it all. Still it was obvious that he intended to prove to himself that he _could_.

At some point, Combeferre and Courfeyrac offered to come along as well, as moral support and for a feeling of security. To Grantaire’s surprise, Enjolras did not even try to deny that he was in need of either when he immediately and gratefully took them up on their offer.

So, the four of them made their way past the cliff where Grantaire had died, past the town he wouldn’t stop calling his home, and a couple of miles further until they reached a small bay that could barely be called such. It was another spot Grantaire had known from years and years ago and also where he had told his friends to meet them, who had spent more than one rare free afternoon of their childhood pretending the beach to be less overgrown and tiny than it was.

It was so early in the morning that the sun had barely risen above the horizon yet, and none of the four expected Grantaire’s friends to arrive for another few hours at least. And yet, when they first risked a glance above the surface, still a good hundreds of metres away from the shore, all of them were already gathered there, waiting.

At first, Grantaire could only make out a group of people that seemed almost too large to be reasonable. As he swam closer, followed carefully but closely by the other three, emerging to survey the land every few dozen metres, he slowly made out who it was that were gathered there.

Quite simply, everyone had come. Jehan and Bahorel, Musichetta and Joly and Bossuet, Cosette and Marius, Éponine, impossibly or perhaps not at all, with Azelma.

Shortly after Grantaire had recognised them, Cosette, who sat facing the ocean, seemed to notice the movement in the water as well. She pointed to where Grantaire was becoming aware of how ridiculous this entire situation was, although he also found it impossible to keep the grin off his face, until all of them were getting up and trying to make out what was nearing them between the waves.

Grantaire dove under the surface one last time, turning to Enjolras, who was flanked by Courfeyrac and Combeferre. “Ready to meet my family?”, he asked.

Enjolras, his expression full of anticipation rather than anxiety, smiled. “I cannot wait.”

Grantaire was the first to walk the last steps out of the waves onto land on barely stable legs, and Jehan was the first by his side.

“I refuse,” he said, reaching a steadying arm around Grantaire, “To believe any of this. This is _not_ what happened. There is no way.”

Everyone else, too, had risen from where they had spread out jackets and blankets and food and drink on the sandy grass and were hurrying towards the shore where the other three were now emerging as well. They seemed to have much less trouble adjusting to walking on land, which Grantaire was only mildly annoyed by.

“Son of a bitch,” said Éponine, who had hurried towards them. “You cannot be serious.”

Grantaire almost felt sheepish with her unbelieving stare on him, about his new form. He realised that he couldn’t even tell how much he must have changed. He hadn’t seen his own reflection in months.

“Well,” said Grantaire, “I know it comes as a surprise, but we couldn’t just mention in the letter what had happened- I mean I don’t entirely know that-“

Éponine was already waving him off. “That is not what I’m talking about; Bahorel had a betting pool open about whether you were still human or not. What I cannot believe is that you weren’t exaggerating about Enjolras. That man is _handsome_.”

“He is- Bahorel did _what_?”

Éponine shrugged. “His mother used to read him this story about a human that was turned into a siren through true love’s embrace or something along those lines. And then you wanted to meet right at the seashore. Anyway, I owe him twenty Damned francs.”

And she walked off to pay her debt.

Their morning was chaotic and overwhelming, people being introduced, apologies and thanks and explanations exchanged. To Grantaire’s great relief, Enjolras was the one to relay what had happened on the day of their flight. He excelled at it, of course, this way of explaining everything with a finality that left no room for any question about if what had happened had been necessary, or just. It simply had occurred, and that was that.

Still, of course, Grantaire found it hard to meet Azelma's eye. Éponine had proved instantly that day that she was far from upset about what had happened to her father. It had always been her sister who had found it hard to give up her attachment to her parents.

Grantaire went to her, then, without any plan but to apologise, to somehow right the wrong he still felt responsible for.

In the few months Grantaire had been gone, Azelma had somehow aged more than any of them. For the first time, she looked like a young woman rather than a girl.

She looked up as Grantaire approached her, and before he could think of what he was about to say, she said, “Oh, Grantaire- You can Sing now, too, correct? Could you? Please? For me?”

Éponine turned away from her conversation with Enjolras and hit her sister across the head, if lightly. “I _told_ you not to bring that up!”

Grantaire, confused for a second, realised that they might have been concerned about speaking of the Song in front of Enjolras, although he looked more confused about the abrupt end of his conversation with Éponine than offended by the topic.

“Um,” said Grantaire to Azelma, “I’m not sure if that is such a good idea. I would have to practice first, you see. Maybe next year?”

It was a small part of the truth: Grantaire had, in theory, already tried practising his Song before. Once he knew what he was looking for, it came to him as easily as the way they communicated underwater. But since there was no necessity for it as long as he did not travel alone, and because they hadn’t wanted to put themselves into danger by nearing human civilisation when they’d had a choice, Grantaire had never used his Song on a human. He was not sure if he ever wanted the day to come where this choice was taken from him, but he feared that it was inevitable.

Azelma sent her sister a glare – _see, no harm done, why should I not have asked_ -, shrugged at Grantaire, and went to talk to Courfeyrac and Combeferre, possibly to repeat her request.

Although the air was much warmer than the water, especially as they approached noon, Grantaire and the other three sat with blankets wrapped around them. Maybe the others were simply avoiding causing discomfort for their human friends, but there was something about being back on land for Grantaire that asked for the comfort of a layer of cloth around him. This was familiar, yes. But also, Grantaire could already feel after just a few hours that this was no longer his home. He did not belong here, not truly, and he tried not to choose this moment to wonder about how it would feel to be stuck on land for months and months and months.

Once the initial chaos died down and everything of importance had been relayed, Grantaire settled down near Jehan, who was happily discussing something related to the fauna near them with Courfeyrac, who, too, looked genuinely excited about the topic. Grantaire looked at his family gathered around them, at Bahorel lying with his eyes closed next to Jehan, at Combeferre chatting with Cosette and Marius, and at Enjolras, who looked so invested in a discussion with Éponine that Grantaire’s natural reflex was to go over and interject with some sort of counterargument, just for the sake of it.

But just today, he stayed where he was, and just watched.

Grantaire had never in his life been happy, or expected to be.

But there he was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for sticking with this story and reading it all the way to the end!! this is the longest fanfic I've ever written and I'm so pleased it's finally wrapped up.
> 
> thank you to my tumblr-less friend for helping me so much with the last couple chapters, it would have been no fun despairing over them all alone.
> 
> you can find me on [tumblr](https://kerstintxt.tumblr.com/) if you're interested in literally just me reblogging shit posts and adventure zone graduation fanart, and (better yet) [twitter](https://twitter.com/kerstintxt) if you're interested in me oversharing my thoughts on writing, theatre and musicals, or if you just want to chat.
> 
> I write to get better at writing, so all forms of constructive criticism are welcome! seriously, tell me what you disliked.
> 
> thank you!!!!


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